


Multiplicity

by devviepuu



Series: seeking an explanation for observed phenomena [1]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: "I was just about to call you", F/M, Post-Season/Series 05, Pre-Season/Series 06
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-24
Updated: 2018-03-07
Packaged: 2019-03-01 23:48:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 22,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13305921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devviepuu/pseuds/devviepuu
Summary: "If she was the type of person who wrote poetry instead of code, there would be sonnets about the multiplicity of ways Oliver said her name, and all of the different meanings attached to it."Or, how they talk through some things.





	1. what kind of day it has been / may, 2017

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i think i am not the only one who caught oliver's casual remark in 6x01 - "i was just about to call you." so much implied in that throwaway line!
> 
> i subsequently found macha s. wicket's "before they turn the lights out", which is lovely. (check it out if you have not already)
> 
> this work draws some inspiration from theshipsfirstmate, because a few of those fics (especially "i have been homesick for you since we met" and "please excuse this little bit of weakness") are completely part of my headcanon now. thea's description of the bunker-deathtrap-lockdown comes from "i have been homesick for you since we met" and i was inspired by "it's the side effects that save us" for part of felicity's thought process.
> 
> anyway, this was just my own interest in what their conversations might have been like. (and again, i am sure i am not the only one!) each piece is sort of a stand alone, but i try to build one on top of the other and have the conversation progress. if i can work out a structure, i'd like to follow the idea beyond these initial conversations (basically the first few weeks after Lian Yu) into the remainder of the hiatus time, right up to felicity bringing burgers after seeing her mom off to the airport.

_Beep. Beep. Beep._

Felicity hated hospital rooms. Hated them more than pointy things and kangaroos and heights, in fact, but she couldn’t leave her friend and former teammate and almost sister-in-law alone, and, anyway, technically this wasn’t a hospital room. It was a medical bay with a surgery in a secure A.R.G.U.S. facility on the mainland. In China.

 _Oh, heck,_ Felicity thought, pulling her glasses off and scrubbing her face. A quick look at her hand showed that there was still dried blood somewhere on her forehead.

Why couldn’t things be easy, for once?

_Beep. Beep. Beep._

And then Felicity almost laughed - would have, actually, if Thea wasn’t looking like she needed another dip in the Lazarus Pit, but it — this - this life, the team, her, Oliver, her and Oliver - was never going to be easy. Easy wasn’t really their thing - it was, in fact, so the opposite of their thing that an island full of land mines was the least hard part of what had happened today.

Yesterday? Whenever.

_Beep. Beep. Beep._

At least, Felicity thought to herself, they had done the land mine thing before.

But easy was so not their thing that she had forgotten how to trust it when it was easy. Easy ended in bullets and lies and heartbreak and the guilt of a dead friend. The only easy thing about her life since Oliver had wandered into her cubicle had been falling hopelessly in love with him, and finding out that he loved her back had been the least easy part about that, too.

_Beep. Beep. Beep._

She’d kissed him and it had never felt so inadequate - a meaningless coda to the insanity of the bunker deathtrap lockdown; Thea’s words, not hers, and accompanied by a silent-but-eloquent raise of her eyebrow with the sly suggestion of how to divert her brother for his birthday surprise. Thea was - is - less obvious than Curtis but no less determined to make her brother and almost-sister-in-law answer for all that hung unresolved between them.

(God, she loved Thea. The woman was sharp and unforgiving but funny and clever and intensely loyal to those she considered family. _Please, Thea,_ Felicity kept thinking in between spirals. Please wake up.)

How was it possible to say too much and have it still not be enough? “I understand, I trust you, I forgive you” — Felicity wasn’t sure if any of those things were true but she’d needed to say them almost as much as he needed to hear them. It was an olive branch, as though saying them and pretending that was real was progress, and maybe it was? But lingering there unspoken were the three most important words, the words that were true and had not stopped being true even though both of them had tried.

Even their _gorram_ peace offerings weren’t easy, always ending up with someone nearly dying or in a hospital, and today - yesterday - was the second time in just _two frakking weeks._ Just once it might be nice to fight and then make up like a normal couple instead of surrounded by actual fire and brimstone, almost two years’ worth of piled-up regrets and the press of his lips lingering against her skin.

But they were neither of those things: not normal and not a couple. Because that had happened, failed, been a complete disaster, and they’d spent most of their time since last summer - since that night in the bunker - looking anywhere but at each other.

_Beep. Beep. Beep._

The rasp of Thea’s respirator pulled her out of her thoughts, redirecting them from the shadow of the grief that still ached and tingled like her back did on those mornings when moving seemed like an impossibility. It was an awful noise - ragged and harsh, somehow quiet and capable of filling the entire room at the same time - but Felicity was weirdly grateful for it. Sometimes, when she was not fully focused, the grief would envelop her - catching her off guard and knocking the wind out of her.

The phone in her lap buzzed and Felicity jumped a little in her chair. Only two of them had phones and only one person had the number and she was talking almost before she hit the ‘answer’ button: “Oliver, there’s no change in Thea. Captain Lance went to go lay down and Dinah is with John until Lyla gets here - all he needed was an X-ray and the special aspirin - were you able to call Barry? And how is William? Is he sleeping? Was there something he could eat in the safe house, because, you know, most ten-year-olds don’t share your complete disinterest in food - eating it, I mean, not cooking it, though most ten-year-olds don’t cook either…”

“Felicity.”

She tried to remember the last time he had said her name like that, rolling the word on his tongue like it was a full sentence in itself. If she was the type of person who wrote poetry instead of code, there would be sonnets about the multiplicity of ways Oliver said her name, and all of the different meanings attached to it.

This was his quiet voice, low and still except for the emotion bleeding in through the edge. Insistent and serious and _please stop talking,_ it said.

She did.

“Do you remember the man on the subway who kidnapped Roy?”

If Felicity remembered correctly, that was roughly the time Oliver had been in the habit of doing pull-ups off of the foundry ceiling right above her computer chair and, wow, if she hadn’t already been crushing it might have killed her. But that was a non-sequitur on top of a random question and she thought she knew where he was going with this one.

“Yeah,” she said simply. “Because of the subway, we couldn’t get a lock on his position. I sent you to the wrong address and he killed one of the district attorneys before you could get to him.”

“You said to me,” he reminded her, “‘I don’t know how I would tell someone about my day,’ and I said —“

“If you ever need to tell someone about your day,” Felicity finished for him, “you can tell me.”

“I know this isn’t the sort of thing we do any more, but —“ There was a long pause on the other end of the line, and then, “I just really need to tell someone about today.”

His voice was half an octave higher by the time he finished talking, still barely above a whisper. It was the same tone she had heard from him before after tragedies and setbacks - after Billy, and after Black Siren - the tone for when words were inadequate but they still needed to be said. In her mind’s eye he was sitting on the floor in the A.R.G.U.S. safe house, his back braced against a wall and his eyes red at the edges with unshed tears and irises lit up with a mess of emotions she’d swear she could pick through one by one if she let herself stare for long enough.

As peace offerings went, it was fairly weak sauce, but —

“I’m here, Oliver,” she said, and she knew that he heard in her voice all of the things she wasn’t saying. “I’m not going anywhere.”

_Beep. Beep. Beep._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title is a "the west wing" reference.


	2. you-know-who / may, 2017

Felicity dropped the book carefully onto Thea’s bed and reached for the phone when it started buzzing.“Lord Voldemort speaking,” she drawled with what she hoped was a hint of her usual flair.

A beat, and then, “What?”The syllable was short and staccato with just a hint of an interrogatory at the end and Felicity smiled, knowing that she’d caught him in a genuine moment of surprise.With Thea stabilized enough to prepare her for travel but not on the way to waking up any time soon, Felicity had decided that small pleasures needed to be had at whatever moments they were available.

Besides, how long had it been since she had been able to tease Oliver?

“I know you haven’t seen the movies,” Felicity said.“Are you telling me you’ve actually read _Harry Potter_?”

“Thea told you,” he said, almost to himself.“I can’t believe Thea told you.”

“I’ve known Thea for almost as long as I’ve known you,” Felicity reminded him with a sad smile at the woman in the bed next to her.“I used to drink with her in the club.I helped her with team business.We were going to be sisters-in-law.But it’s cute that you think we didn’t tell each other things.”

He exhaled a laugh through his nostrils and Felicity took the win.“I’ve read _Harry Potter_ ,” he admitted.“I took them from Thea, in fact.What does that have to do with anything?”

“They say that people in Thea’s condition can hear and respond to voices,” Felicity explained.“I ran out of things to talk about.”

“That seems unlikely,” he said, and Felicity imagined the small smile that meant he was laughing on the inside.

“What I mean is, I thought it would be easier to read to her and _Harry Potter_ was all they had in English at the nearest bookstore.”

“Ah,” he said.“That actually makes sense.”

“If I thought about it sooner,” Felicity said, “I would have grabbed an extra copy for you to bring on the plane with William.”There was an awkward pause and she cleared her throat.“Did you speak to Barry?”

“No,” Oliver said, and started muttering to himself in what sounded like Mandarin.

“For those of us that don’t secretly speak three languages?”Felicity prompted.“Translation?”

“Barry has apparently gone and done something crazy with the speed force,” he clarified.“According to Cisco, Barry is unavailable for the foreseeable future and Caitlin has gone off the grid.So S.T.A.R. Labs is not an option for Thea and I was hoping that you would fly home with her.”

“Oliver,” she said softly.“Of course I will.”Another awkward pause.“But, hey, bright side - if you had to listen to Cisco and Harry troll each other, your fingers would start doing that twitchy thing you do when you wish you had a bow in your hands.Also, kind of relevant here, I feel like I should remind you that you once joined the League of Assassins, kidnapped everyone you loved, locked them in a dungeon and infected them with an experimental virus?”

“You can remind me which Wells is the one they have now,” Oliver deadpanned.

“All I’m saying is that maybe people in glass Arrow Caves shouldn’t throw stones.Or call their friends crazy.”

“Noted,” he said with the small rumble in his voice that was low and rough and poorly concealing his amusement.Felicity could not remember the last time she had heard that rumble; she had forgotten how much she liked it.

A companionable silence hung in the air between them for a moment and then Oliver said, “I wish you were coming with me.”

“Oliver —“

“If I had done things differently last year, I might not have been able to stop this, but you would be coming with me and he would have both of us.”

Felicity opened her moth and closed it a few times, but words didn’t seem like they were coming out.

There was a bitter laugh that sounded suspiciously like it was on the verge of a sob when he said, “My family - _my mother_ \- did this to me, kept William a secret, like something to be ashamed of, and I did this to you and to us.”

“Oliver,” she said sharply.Felicity wondered what he heard when she said his name - hoped it was _I am not ready for this conversation_.

“I’m sorry,” Oliver said quickly.“I’ll call you when we land in Central City.”

 _Great.Yes.Do that,_ she thought, but then remembered what they had promised each other when it might be the last thing they could ever give:to talk, after, when they got off Lian Yu.“No,” she said.

“No?”

“No, I meant, yes.You’re right.”Felicity took a deep breath.“I should be going with you.And it’s not like I’ve never thought about it, ok?I’ve thought about it probably hundreds of times, and then - the past two days - I’ve been that kid, Oliver.The kid whose parent is suddenly gone, the kid who suddenly has a new life.I feel like I know almost exactly what he is going through and you know what?None of that matters, because if I tried to be there with you right now it would just confuse the heck out of him and he needs to be the most important thing.”

She hadn’t been ready for kids, that much Felicity knew for sure.This life had taught her about drive and passion and teamwork and love but especially about heartbreak and it was often impossible to imagine bringing a child into that on top of everything else.’

“He should have been your stepson,” Oliver said in his very, very quiet voice.

Felicity wasn’t sure she would ever have been ready for kids, but maybe - just maybe - she was sure of him again.And of them. _“I don’t trust myself,”_ he had confessed, in a voice that even she had never heard from him before, like it was scraped off the bottom of his soul, like it was his very last secret, begging her to believe him.

And she had.She knew who he was, knew him better than almost anybody.She’d known him since the first day, with his stupid charming high-functioning sociopath routine as he hovered behind her desk in the old IT bullpen and after everything they’d lost, and everything that had happened, she still knew him.

And she still loved him.

“I would have made him hot cocoa with extra marshmallows and let him know he had an extra shoulder to cry on,” Felicity said, not sure if she was talking to him or to herself.“I would have told him that the fear and the panic and the grief are all normal things he is allowed to feel and that it may not seem like it now but there’s going to be a time when they aren’t overwhelming, when he will enjoy things again, where he will make new friends and a new life.”She sighed.“But that’s your job right now, Oliver. What he needs to know right now is that he has you.”

“Felicity —“That was the way he said it when what he meant was _I love you_.

“I know,” she said.“Oliver, I know.”


	3. i need answers for what all the waiting i've done means / may, 2017

It was the kind of classically A.R.G.U.S. cover story that, as Diggle would say, was so clean that anyone who knew better would know it was a fake. But the Claytons didn’t know better. They didn’t want to know better; they just needed to know why they were burying their daughter and their grandson was moving to Star City. They needed answers.

The Claytons had known that William came from somewhere, obviously, but were unprepared to deal with the reality of former-billionaire-reformed-playboy Mayor Oliver “Ollie” Queen on their doorstep.

And William still wouldn’t meet Oliver’s eyes when he spoke, which was as infrequently and monosyllabically as possible.

When Oliver called her that night, he wanted answers, too -- and Oliver being Oliver, he leapt right in.

“Why did you stay?” It was his pity-party voice, and even though that voice had never once meant good news, Felicity’s heart broke a little as she tried to imagine exactly how badly today must have hurt on top of everything else that had fallen to pieces around them.

“Excuse me?”  She knew what he was talking about, didn't need the clarification.  

“Why,” he repeated slowly but plainly, “did you stay? Last summer?”  He knew she knew.

“I…” she started to say, then stopped. Then stood up, turned in a circle, and sat back down. Adjusted her glasses.

"You told me I could be the man you loved and the hero the city needed, and even when I fucked that up and proved you wrong, you stayed.  And for a little while - it was like nothing had changed."

They had been postponing this conversation - the conversation they’d had silently every time they been unable to avoid eye contact - for almost a year. She thought back to something her mother had said: Lost in each other, which sounded romantic until you remembered that it meant you were both still lost.

“Felicity?” _Talk to me, Felicity._

They were really doing this, then.  

“I …”

 _… couldn’t leave until I could sleep through the night without screaming._  
_… couldn’t let anybody else die because I wasn’t there._  
_… was terrified it would be you that died._  
_… had no idea how to move on._  
_… didn’t want to be alone._  
_… still loved you._

Finally, Felicity cleared her throat and said, “I wasn’t ready to give up on what we were doing there,” knowing he would remember when and why he had once said something similar to her, leaving off the rest of that conversation and ignoring the simplest answer:  in spite of everything, her life was happy as long as he was in it.

A tiny exhalation, barely audible over the line, and Felicity could picture the slump of his shoulders straightening, just a little bit. There was a buzz running through her - not a nervous feeling, more like a release that has been a long time coming. There was still a mountain between them, but maybe it was time to start tearing it down.

“And I’m sorry,” she continued, knowing she didn’t have to say it, but that she wanted to. “About that night. About not being able to face what had happened.”

“You had your reasons,” he said. “And you weren’t wrong.”

She still had her reasons. And so much had changed. But even in the bunker-deathtrap-lockdown, Felicity had felt his body crouched over her chair and the way he had put himself in front of the wall when it had broken open — that hadn’t changed. And she had dragged her unresponsive legs across the floor to be closer to him — that hadn’t changed, either. His first instinct was still to put everything on the line to protect her, just like her first instinct was to save him from himself.

The reasons still mattered. She might never understand why he had lied to her about William. But maybe that doubt didn’t outweigh everything else any more, not after a year of knowing intimately what it meant to have distance between them, how painful and unnatural it felt. Maybe this - them - whatever it was, was still stronger.

Maybe the only way out was together, pulling each other out of the darkness.

“But that talk, Oliver? I’m ready for it now.”

It says something about them, she was sure, that he only apologizes when he thinks there's no other way and she only does it’s time to start all over. They were always able to bring out strong emotions in each other; the problem was the way the mixture of their particular strains of stubborn so often left them at odds.  But it was also why they always found their way back, in the end. Like a magnetic pull or their own kind of gravity, keeping them forever in each other’s orbit.

“Felicity,” he said, and it was both a plea and a sigh of relief. _Thank you._ “There’s so much I want to say to you, I don’t even know where to start.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title is from "kill" by jimmy eat world, basically the theme song of my failed college romances :-)
> 
> "It says something about them, she was sure, that he only apologizes when he thinks there's no other way and she only does it’s time to start all over."  
> \-- theshipsfirstmate, "it's the side effects that save us"


	4. crucible / june, 2017

He called again that night, just like he had every night in the days since he'd left Lian Yu. They'd spoken as she waved off John, Quentin and the recruits for a commercial flight arranged by A.R.G.U.S. and again while Felicity gathered her few belongings and waited with Thea for med-evac transport back to Star City. She'd phoned him when they landed and again when Thea had been settled into her room at Starling General.

"Thea's fine," Felicity told him, which was technically true but conveyed almost nothing, so she told him about every beep and blip and flicker on the monitor screen because she knew how guilty Oliver was feeling about his divided loyalties, and how many other times he'd been convinced that his sister had needed him and where he had let her down. Felicity told him about the extra security cameras she'd hidden in the room and how she'd air-gapped all of the equipment to prevent hacking, and Oliver thanked her like it was everything but really it was the least she could do. Felicity still remembered Thea's arm around her when Oliver stumbled through his confession to killing Billy, and after, how it felt to watch the younger woman get thinner and paler and sadder over the course of the year until finally it was Felicity consoling Thea after Malcolm did the first - and last - selfless thing he had ever done by sacrificing himself on a rusty Japanese land mine.

It was even stranger now, seeing someone as beautiful and strong and determined as Thea lying unresponsive in a hospital bed; they had both been adrift for so long but there had been a moment of hope, a crack that seemed to let the light in, before their kidnapping-en-masse. Felicity had decided even before Oliver asked her that she would talk enough for the both of them - for all three of them - as often as possible until Oliver got home and until Thea woke up.

Oliver told her about William, though there was little to tell, which seemed to pain Oliver almost as much as everything else combined. "He let me sit with him today," Oliver said, with that forced cheerfulness in his voice she remembered from their early days in the foundry, as though he could turn his emotions on and off with a switch.

“I’ve been discussing it with the Claytons,” he said slowly, and there was a hint of hesitation in his voice. “We’ve been thinking that it would be a good idea for him to stay here, in Central City, for a while, and I will come visit. Then when it’s time to get ready for the new school year we can get him settled in back home. What do you think?”

“Oh,” Felicity said unhelpfully and cleared her throat.  Asking her opinion - about William - that was new. “Um, well, considering you can’t keep a ten-year-old on a cot in the bunker basement - unless you’d been staying at Susan’s and we never noticed - you’re going to need time to find a place to live and set it up so a slow transition seems like a good idea?” Her voice hitched up at the end, making it a question, and speaking of the foundry basement she was pretty sure she hadn’t been that unsure of her words since then.

“Susan’s? No.” Oliver said. “We were getting serious but not that serious.” He paused and then answered the question she had really been asking. “I don’t know if what Susan and I had was real. But it was good - it reminded me what it was like to talk to someone again.”

Felicity’s breath hitched. She knew that feeling. But Oliver was still talking.

“And after what Chase did to her, it seemed like it was time to pull the pin.”

“To be fair,” Felicity said before she could stop the words coming out, “not everyone understands the value of a good kidnapping as a romantic overture.”

Silence.

"Oh my god," Felicity said.  "I am the absolute  _worst_.  I'm sorry, I cope using inappropriate humor, does that work as an excuse?"

"It has not escaped my attention," he said seriously, but she heard the smile in his voice.  "But maybe it's just that not everyone is as remarkable a woman as you are.”

“So I’ve been told,” she said, and felt the smile pulling at her lips. “Thank you for remarking on it.” Years ago, even before anything had happened, Felicity had been convinced that the pain of losing someone as important to her as Oliver would be unbearable, and she’d believed him when he said she would never lose him.

But she had, and not just to the lie - in all of the small things.

It got quiet between them after that, though neither of them moved to disconnect the call. He’d been there with her, she realized. Trying to maintain an impossible balance, a detente that barely existed, an unspoken moratorium on the personal talk except in the rare moments when it was unavoidable, because the instinct was still there to turn to each other. It had been painful but it had worked right up until the day when it hadn't, because all she knew was pain and anger and regret.  "The only way I know how to fight the darkness is to be the darkness," Oliver had said once, and Felicity understood that better than she had ever wanted to, now.  And doing it alone - as he had always done - felt not only inevitable by obvious, the only choice she had in the face of her grief. 

It might be six months too late for that realization -- to remember that anger never accomplished anything, it just created more anger -- but it was better than never, which was what they’d almost gotten.

“I’m watching the Central City Comets game,” Oliver said after a few moments. “Watch it with me?”

Felicity had never counted how many sporting events involving grown men and tiny balls she had endured when they were together, but it was a lot. She hated sports but loved the easy intimacy of it, sitting on the couch in the loft or scanning every station on the Porsche’s radio trying to find the local sports broadcast. He would record the games and watch them late at night, when he wasn’t in the field but couldn’t sleep, and she would sit there with him, their fingers absent-mindedly interlocked while she coded or read or just dozed. In the year since - on really bad nights - Felicity had occasionally found herself doing the same thing, recording and watching sports events, sometimes letting herself remember how often she had touched him and how unnatural it felt not to. Even when they weren't together, it had felt instinctive and right and it let her know that whatever it was between them went both ways, because he let her give and take comfort from that simple physical connection; a casual intimacy he allowed no one else.

“Sure,” she said, not telling him that she’d been live-streaming the game on a tablet, watching it with him from the moment he phoned, and sighed.

“You okay?”

“Yes,” she said automatically. Which was a lie. “No — sort of.” Deep breath, and then: “This year was not in any way what I expected it to be.”

“Right,” he said, like that wasn’t maybe the biggest understatement either of them had ever presented. Because, everything else aside, aliens.

“I hate that it happened,” she said, “but I am not sure that I would take it back, either.” She’d needed the distance between them. She’d needed to understand how much it still hurt to lose him even when he wasn’t hers to lose any more. More than anything, Felicity had needed to remind herself that what she did for their team was saving the world, or trying to, more than a supervirus or a hacked cache of personal documents ever would.  Her life had meaning; she made a difference; she had a team.

And maybe - a partner?  A crazy guy in a hood who had opened her mind and her heart, who had led her to discover that she was so much more than an IT girl.

“I know a little bit about that,” he said.

“Some things, though…” she said. Billy and the bullets and Laurel. Havenrock.  Whatever she had, it was never going to be easy.

“Yeah,” he said quietly. “I know a little about that, too.”

“Now we both do,” she sighed.

“Felicity,” he said softly but seriously. _Listen to me. Focus._ “You’ve been through a crucible.”

She huffed out a small laugh that was only just on the right side of not being a sob. “Promise me,” she said. “No masks.”


	5. watching, waiting, commiserating / june, 2017

He came back from Central City, back to his office and his sister and back to the bunker like nothing had changed.

Only everything had.

Felicity watched him out of the corner of her eye as Oliver ran Curtis and Rene through a few drills, while she was also trying to focus on some data that Cisco was sending her.  It wasn’t working particularly well - she felt unable to multitask for the first time in her adult life - and it didn’t help that Cisco kept pointing that out to her in their open chat window.  When Dinah phoned in from her shift for an assist, it was a relief.  A little normalcy would do the trick perfectly and let her focus on her work.

Only Curtis and Rene volunteered to handle it on their own, and Oliver agreed, even if he looked as if he was reconsidering it when Rene smirked and said it would “give Mom and Dad some alone time.”

“Subtlety, people,” Felicity muttered under her breath while Oliver somehow managed to stare daggers at the recruits and smile at her simultaneously.

But whatever she was expecting when it was just the two of them in the room, it wasn’t what she got.  While Felicity watched the comms for Terrific and Wild Dog, Oliver disappeared, which did absolutely nothing for her ability to focus until she heard the ball machine downstairs spitting out targets at irregular intervals.

With a sigh, Felicity settled in to her chair and gave both of her tasks the attention they deserved.  Cisco wanted her help on some new gear for Wild Dog and another project, somehow related to Barry’s absence, that he was very vague about.

_< <Can you get out to S.T.A.R. Labs?>>_

_< <ASAP and bring Curtis.>>_

Her friend needed her, and she was ready to spring into action, except there was kind of a lot that needed her attention right here:  sick friend, a team that needed to regroup after a massive confrontation --

Felicity heard the familiar but long-absent clang of the salmon ladder.

And a very, very complicated personal situation.

Maybe a trip wasn’t such a terrible idea.

_< <We’ll be on the last train out tonight.>>_

It wasn’t wrong to hold her breath and hope for shirtlessness, was it?

And if it was wrong to hope for it - and she wasn’t saying that it was - what did it mean that Oliver was there (fully clothed, sigh) nonchalantly doing pull-ups like he’d done it every day for the past eighteen months instead of not a single time, ever?

It had to mean something.

“What’s your plan, Oliver?” Felicity blurted out when he dismounted, trying not to notice how he had broadened in the shoulders and chest since the last time she had seen him do this.

He dropped down without saying a word, giving her a wink just as Curtis and Rene walked in.  Curtis’ eyes widened and his mouth dropped open and --

“Curtis,” Felicity snapped before he could say anything embarrassing.  “Get your things.  Cisco needs us at S.T.A.R. Labs.”

“Rene,” Oliver said much more calmly and not even batting an eyelash in surprise, “Call it a night, ok?”

Felicity watched Rene head for the elevator and Curtis for the shower before she turned back to Oliver.  “Last-minute trip,” she said unnecessarily.

“Ok,” he said, and smiled.

“It’s weird,” she said, and grinned at his silently inquisitive raised eyebrows.  “That you’re back, and now I have to leave.”

“And by the time you get back,” he said, “I’ll probably be planning on leaving again.”  He put a hand on her shoulder.  “Thank you for spending so much time with Thea while I was gone.”

“You’re welcome,” she said, turning her head toward his hand, and putting her own on top of it.

“I’ll call you,” Oliver said softly, which was when Felicity noticed that they seemed to be standing closer to each other than they had been a moment before.  She wasn’t sure who stepped forward first but in the next moment his lips brushed over hers, feather-light and almost chaste, but still enough to leave her skin on fire.  It was anticipation or expectation or fear or hope or all of those things and she let herself wonder what it might feel like, to finally give in and kiss him again the way she used to.

They parted, and Felicity wasn’t sure how long they stood there before Oliver stepped just far enough away to be out of reach exactly as Curtis walked back in, bag in hand.  “Have a good trip, you two,” Oliver said.

(Curtis made faces and kissing noises at her the entire time she was packing up what they needed to go to Central City, and for a solid hour on the train and when she punched him, Felicity totally remembered to keep her wrist straight.)

 

\--

 

“I’m sorry?” Felicity almost-screeched, which echoed in the S.T.A.R. Labs cortex.  “Speed Force prison?  How are all of those words even in the same sentence?  And how are we getting him back?”

“Hello, why do you think I asked you here?”  Cisco asked, slightly wounded.  “There’s no need to be like that.  I have a plan.”

She looked at him expectantly.

“I have...the outline of a plan.  I have an idea, ok?”  Cisco shook his head and Felicity sighed.  “Which is why I called you guys.”

“Fine,” Felicity said.  “Curtis will help.  I just want to check in with Iris.”  She looked around the room, which seemed empty with no Barry, no Wells and no Caitlin.  “Where is Iris?”

“She’s not here, Felicity,” Cisco said quietly.  “She hasn’t been here since … “

“Yeah,” Felicity said.  “I should have guessed that.”  How many times had she quit after the world had ended?

“She’s at home,” Cisco added.  “I’ll give you the address.”

Felicity turned on a heel and walked out, already plugging the address into a ride-share app.  Cisco would be fine with Curtis for a while, and Iris could use the company.

Come to think of it, they both could.

\--

“Felicity,” Iris said as she opened the door.  “Why are you here?”  Her voice was completely devoid of emotion, not even really curious.  There were unshed tears in her eyes but steel and determination in her posture.  Felicity had seen that look in her mirror more times than she cared to remember.

“I came to work on a project with Cisco,” Felicity explained, “but I thought you might need someone to talk to.”

Felicity invited herself in, seeing the loft Barry had been so excited about - so proud of - for the first time, and almost stopped in her tracks.  It reminded her so much of the house in Ivy Town.  That little borrowed piece of suburbia was nothing like the urban Central City apartment in any superficial way, but Felicity’s breath seemed to melt out of her body when she saw the place, took in the knickknacks and photos and the potential of a life lived together.  Even when Oliver had been living with her, the apartment in Star City had never looked like this - they had barely been there long enough to unpack, and all of the mementoes of their summer on the road and of their time together remained in their boxes, in a closet, to this day.

“Why?” Iris asked, a challenge in her voice.  “So you can tell me you understand, you’re sorry, you know what I am going through or how I might feel?”

Seeing the signs of what Barry and Iris had had scattered among the detritus of what had been left behind - the sheets on the couch and the overturned photo frame and the glass of red wine on the table - told a story without words that Felicity already knew by heart.

“No,” Felicity said.  “Clearly any version I have of that wouldn’t be persuasive, even though I am sorry, and I do understand, and I’ve been through what you are going through.”

Iris said nothing, but went to pour another glass of wine, which Felicity took as a good sign that she could sit on the couch and get comfortable.  “I cried.  I quit, I drank red wine and ate a lot of mint chip, and I slept with someone else and tried to move on.”  Twice, actually.  “But none of it helped.  When the person you love more than anything in the world leaves you, walks away with some noble purpose and a sad smile and tells you to live your life and be happy, like that even seems possible --”

_I’d prefer that we didn’t do our usual “please don’t go” dance._

_The only way that I’m going to survive this is if I know that you’re out there, living your life…_

Felicity exhaled, long and slow.  “My hero -- person -- the love of my life - has left.  For stupid reasons, and noble reasons, and ridiculously heroic-on-the-edge-of-suicidal reasons.”  She took a sip of wine that turned into more of a gulp.

“Your --” Iris seemed momentarily confused.  “Oliver.”  It occurred to her that Iris might not know the details of her permanent “it’s complicated” relationship status with the Green Arrow, but Iris was a smart observant woman and it wasn’t like those pieces were hard to put together.  “I’d always wondered, but Barry was so protective of Oliver, you know?”  Her face softened, reacting to something only she could see, and she said, "He called him Ollie."

Felicity bit back a tiny and hugely inappropriate smile and resolved to analyze Barry’s adorable man-crush on Oliver another day, because right now Iris seemed on the edge of tears again at the mention of her fiance.  And, honestly, her own eyes weren’t completely dry either.

“I think…” Iris said after a minute, “that we are going to need more wine.”

“No,” Felicity said firmly.  “We are going to need _all_ of the wine.  And probably more after that.”  She gestured at her glass - “Red wine, if you have it” - and tipped the contents into her mouth before ticking off all of the close calls on her fingers:  “There was the time someone pushed him off a mountain with a sword in his side - or the time he had us all kidnapped, which, actually, we never did thank Barry for pulling us out of that one.  But to say that Oliver has an underdeveloped sense of self-preservation would be a bit of an understatement, because that doesn’t even count the time he tried to surrender to an insane, homicidal drug-addled super-soldier and the time he honest-to-goodness needed magic in order not to die.”

“Magic?” Iris raised an eyebrow.

“You have a multiverse and time-travel,” Felicity pointed out.  “We have magic.”

It was quiet for a few minutes before Iris said, “Barry once told me that without me, there’s no Flash.  But right now -- it’s like without him, there’s no me.  He’s been here my entire life, Felicity, and now I can’t even sleep upstairs in our bed.”

Felicity winced in sympathy.  She had started sleeping on the wrong side of the bed just so she wouldn’t have to see someone else where Oliver used to be.  She put her wine glass back on the table, leaned forward, and took her friend’s hand in both of hers.

“Barry told me to keep running,” Iris said softly.  “I’m not sure how to do that.”

“The thing about this life -- living like this is not for the weak.”  Another eyebrow raise prompted Felicity to add, “It’s something Oliver always says, but it sounds better in Russian.”

“Oliver speaks Russian?”

“Long story, not important.”  She waved it off.  “But here’s the thing, here’s what I came to say and to share, for whatever it’s worth:  I know.   _I know_.  Once we thought Oliver was dead for almost three months --.”

“Oliver came back, Felicity,” Iris pointed out.

(He had, he had come back - to her - and if she knew anything about her Oliver she knew that he would do it again if she wanted him to, knew that he was just waiting for her to say it --)

“I don’t know,” Felicity said, “if Barry will come back, Iris.  I’m just saying that you need to find a way to keep believing in what you’re doing.”  She smiled, a sad smile, remembering the words that had helped her through this once before.  “Ask yourself if you are doing this for him or if you are part of something bigger - something that will protect the people in your life, the people you care about, who are still here?”

“I don’t know if I am like you, Felicity.”

“Be you, Iris.  Be the woman and friend and partner and teammate that Barry always knew you were.  Figure out what it means for you to keep running.”

  
\--

It had been late when she and Curtis left Star City, later when Felicity arrived on Iris’s doorstep, and much, much later than that when Felicity picked up her phone and, with a deep breath, dialed.  She needed to say something, and she knew she needed to be the one to say it first.

“Hi,” he said, picking up on the first ring.  “Everything okay?”

She’d known he’d be awake - he was not much of a sleeper even on a good night, to say nothing of the hundreds of nights they had both been up this late as a matter of routine.

“Everything’s fine,” she said.  And, amazingly, it was.  Of all the things she had let herself forget, maybe that feeling was the one she missed most of all.  “Only -- is it too late?  To say that I miss you?”  She said that, because she still couldn’t say “I love you."

“Felicity,” he said, and it was quiet and hopeful like it hadn’t been since he had asked her to run away with him.  She let it wash over her, reminding her that she used to feel like this all the time - and she believed that they always would.  “It’s not too late.  You’re right on time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i was in a best buy a few weeks ago and they had one of those satellite radio channels on, which is when i discovered that, almost 20 years later, i still remembered all of the words from "all the small things." (those are brain cells i am NEVER GETTING BACK)
> 
> and now, i hope, it's stuck in your head too. you're welcome.


	6. i need you to show me the way from crazy / june 2017

“It’s a technology they’ve apparently mastered on Earth-2,” Felicity said.  “Cisco thinks he can modify it --” She paused, smiled.  “You have absolutely no idea what I am talking about.”

“Nope,” Oliver agreed.  “But I’m enjoying having you explain it to me.”

“I think it was easier to believe the one about the sports bottles,” she said.  “Once more, with feeling?”

When Oliver laughed, the computer in his lap shifted, giving her a quick glimpse of Thea in her hospital bed behind him.  “You know how I feel about all of this parallel earth, time travel, aliens stuff,” he said apologetically.

“Says the man who hired a warlock to bring back Sara’s soul?”

“First of all,” Oliver said, “I didn’t hire him.  He owed me a favor.”

She nodded, pretending to take that as a serious consideration.  He sighed.

“Fine.  But you have only yourself to blame now when I come crawling to you, begging for help on William’s homework.”

“I’m guessing any science beyond basic anatomy -- ‘insert tab A into slot B’ -- went completely over your head,” she said.

“That’s -- accurate,” he winced.

“Speaking of William,” Felicity said, “While I was out there I put some security measures in place around his grandparents’ house, the park where his summer camp is, that kind of thing.  I linked them to S.T.A.R. Labs and to our system in the bunker.  Also --”  She paused, momentarily and uncharacteristically at a loss for words.

“Also…?”

“I left something for you to bring him.  At S.T.A.R. Labs, I mean.  If -- if that’s okay?”  The smile that filled her screen should not be allowed -- illegal, even -- it was so ridiculously and unfairly gorgeous.

“It’s okay,” Oliver said, and she just basked in the glow of it as they beamed stupidly at each other for a minute.

Her train took a sharp turn, shifting her position and breaking their eye contact.

“So.” Oliver cleared his throat.  “Speaking of S.T.A.R. Labs - how is Iris?  What did she think of all of this?”

“Yeah,” Felicity said, rubbing a hand along the back of her neck.  “Cisco sort of decided...not to tell her.”

“Oh,” he said.  “Hm.”  In the corner of her screen, she could see his thumb and forefinger rubbing together.  “Felicity,” and she cringed when it was his _be reasonable_ voice.  “You know sometimes that … might … be … best.”  The last syllable was turned up, making it almost a question.

Lies, she decided, were always going to be a sensitive subject for them.  Felicity closed her eyes and counted, _three, two, one_ , the silence hanging between them and conveying all of the things she wasn’t going to let herself say.

“Felicity.”   _Shit._ “Fe-li-ci-ty…”   _Hey, calm down, talk to me._  “You know I didn’t mean it like that.”

She did know that, which didn’t mean it wasn’t on the tip of her tongue to lash out anyway, because sometimes -- sometimes the sheer tonnage of all of the things they had hidden from each other, and what it had cost them, came bubbling up through her consciousness.  But he was right and this wasn’t the same thing and if Felicity was honest with herself, she actually agreed with Cisco.  Iris didn’t seem to be in a state of mind where this kind of far-fetched plan was going to comfort her, and Felicity wanted to respect her friend’s right to grieve and find a new place in the world.

But still.

 _But still_ …

“I know,” she admitted, but she couldn’t meet his eyes -- assuming that, technically, you could meet someone’s eyes when you were looking at a pinhole camera in a laptop monitor -- “Listen, I should go.  It’s not fair to tie up the entire train’s WiFi just so I can Skype my -- whatever you are --”  She gestured at him for emphasis, as if there could be any doubt about what she was referring to.

“Felicity.”   _Please.  I’m sorry.  Talk to me._

“I’ll see you when I get back,” she said.  “If you haven’t already left.”  And closed the computer lid shut.

\--

“What the _hell_ , Felicity?”  His voice was rough, disgruntled and _pissed._  “I know you said this thing is untrackable but don’t for one second think I believe you have no idea I am nowhere near your time zone.”

“Scarecrow,” Felicity said.  “Hello to you too.”

Roy muttered a string of profanity to himself and she heard him grunt, presumably sitting up from wherever he had been sleeping.  “Argh,” he said at last.  “What did Oliver do this time?”

“What makes you think --”

“Seriously, the only good thing about leaving the Arrowcave was not having to deal with all of your relationship bullshit anymore, and you have called me almost every day since you brought Thea home to Starling General.”

Felicity said nothing, because that was not remotely true.

She absolutely hadn’t called him more than once or twice a week.

“Speaking of --”

“No change,” Felicity said.  “Stable, healing, but no change and we have no idea when she might wake up.  Oliver’s actually with her right now.”

“Uh, yeah.”  There was a muffled sound on Roy’s end.  “He just texted me.”

Felicity said nothing.

“Go ahead and ask,” Roy groaned.  “If I am going to be your relationship counselor, you might as well let me.”

“Absolutely not,” Felicity said primly.  “I am actually calling to tell you about Barry.”

“Okay,” he said, and Felicity pictured the resigned grin on his face.  “Tell me about Barry.”

So Felicity started explaining about the quark matter and the Speed Force and -- “ _Fine_ ,” she said, giving up when she could swear she honest-to-google heard him snore.  “What did Oliver say?”

“Finally,” Roy muttered.  “He says, ‘Tell her I left her an apology in the bunker.  She’ll know what it is.’”  He sighed.  “You know what would be nice, Felicity?  If you and Oliver actually, you know, talked --”

 _We are,_ she didn’t say.   _We are and it’s amazing and it’s terrifying me._ Every day, every night, rediscovering all of the little things they had lost and it was everything.  But Felicity kept seeing Iris’s loft - the sheets on the couch and the overturned photo frame -- Iris’s engagement had been the beginning of the end, just like hers had, and here she was starting down the path all over again.

"Talk to each other," Roy said again.  "And be honest."

"That was very Oliver of you, Roy," Felicity said.

"I'll try not to take that as an insult," Roy retorted, and hung up.

\--

 

It was waiting for her, perched in front of the center monitor, with Curtis hovering anxiously over it.

“Oliver threatened to give me another concussion if I touched it,” he said sheepishly, “which really made me regret my decision to grab the earlier train while you had dinner with Detective West and Iris.”

Felicity’s bag dropped to the floor, heedless of her laptop, as she reached for it:  a tennis ball.

Someone -- Oliver -- had sketched a face onto it.

With a mask.

It was so _frakking_ ridiculous that Felicity couldn’t help the slightly hysterical laugh that escaped her.  What shouldn’t be allowed, she decided, was for someone as serious and focused as Oliver to also be such a humongous marshmallow of a dork.

She took the ball and the small notebook that had propped it up and said to Curtis, “Where is he?”

“Downstairs.  Brooding and being all intense and -- can I say hot?  Because it is seriously hot.”

Ugh.  It _was_ seriously hot, which also went on the list of things that shouldn’t be allowed, Felicity thought to herself and, thank goodness, did not say out loud.

She did not announce her presence, not that he needed her to, because Oliver was never not aware of his surroundings.  Just to prove the point, she hurled the ball at him.

He reached a hand back without turning around and caught it.  “Hi,” he said.

“Hi.”

“So...that happened.”  He turned to face her, started walking over.

“Yeah,” Felicity agreed.  “Mini-freakout.”  She kept walking toward him.

Oliver made a little noise, almost a hum, and bit down on a smile.  “I remember.”  His face turned serious.  “Are we okay?”

“We’re okay,” she said softly, noticing that neither of them had stopped walking, leaving them face-to-face.  He brushed a strand of hair out of her face, tucking it behind her ear as she leaned up into him and ghosted her lips across his.  “Oliver,” she said.

“In a minute,” he whispered.  “Just - “ His lips touched hers again, soft and sweet and hesitant.  Which, no, distracting.  She didn't know what they were doing but -- this, whatever it was -- was absolutely not the way to do it.  They needed to do all of the things they had ignored last time, and there was a kid and his life and his happiness to consider on before they did anything else.

“Oliver,” she said, dropping back down from her toes and taking a deliberate step backward, ignoring the voices in her head that were suggesting things like _close eyes, open mouth, remove clothing_.  “What are we doing?”

 _Oooh, direct approach_.  Felicity congratulated her brain for spitting out the right thing for a change.

“We’re taking it - this - one step at a time,” he said seriously.  “Baby steps.”

Felicity took another step backward and a really deep breath.   _Baby steps_.  Okay.  She could do baby steps.  Their entire relationship was baby steps and tiny increments -- until the one giant leap that had ended so badly.  They were too good at it, until it wasn’t good at all, but baby steps they were experts at.

“I’m serious, Oliver,” she said.  “I’m not saying you have to answer right now, but I need to know you’re thinking about it.”

He cocked his head and she could see his jaw tighten as he bit down on an easy retort.  “I’ve been thinking about it,” he said.  “It’s all I’ve been thinking about.”

Felicity let out a nervous laugh, because of all of the things Oliver was capable of giving laser-focus to, his emotions were not typically among them.

“Felicity,” he said, rubbing her arm, his voice low and soft.  “If -- when -- we decide to try this again, it’s going to be because we are ready, and because William is ready, and we are going to do it right and not spend six months living in a dream waiting for reality to crash in.”

He paused, and it was pregnant with all of the unsaid things, and Felicity held her breath.

“We went from being work colleagues to friends to partners to -- complicated as hell,” he said, “And then - we were everything, all at once.  I closed my eyes and I jumped, because that is what I always do.  Jumped with both feet and couldn’t stick the landing.”

Another pause, and this one was even longer.

“We came home and everything just started breaking faster than I could keep it together and part of me --”

Felicity touched his wrist, and felt his hand curl around hers, and for a second she wasn’t sure who was trying to comfort whom.

“-- part of me was afraid that you would realize we didn’t belong together.”

The words hung in the air, taking on shape and weight.

“Wow,” she whispered.  “That is...kind of a lot.”

“It is a lot,” he agreed.

She opened her hand, putting her palm against his and rotating it until their fingers were intertwined. “And your plan?”

He looked at her, his eyebrows raised in that blank look he got when he just had no idea what to say.

“You always have a plan, Oliver Queen.”

“Um,” he exhaled quickly, the noise slipping out.  “I have -- a rough approach.  I have tactical goals.”

Felicity snorted a laugh, and Oliver smiled.

"It may not be tomorrow or next week or next month or in six months," he admitted.  "Because you were right when you said that William has to be the most important thing.  And --"

"We've been through so much," she said slowly, but nodding so that he would know she wasn't saying  _no_.  "And we've dealt with almost none of it."  But there was something she couldn't let stand, not after Lian Yu and not after the bunker-deathtrap-lockdown and not after all of the dark things that had tried to swallow them in the past two years.  "You're wrong, though," she said, "about one thing."

"Only one thing?"

"Even a broken clock is right twice a day," Felicity said, and laughed when he rolled his eyes.  "We do, though.  We do belong together."

“So now that we agree," he said, "maybe it's just time to try another way.  No plan.”  The hand she wasn’t holding moved to cup her cheek, and Felicity leaned into it.  “The next time we go out for dinner I want it to be the last first date of my life.  If you -- do you -- want that too?”

“Wow,” she said again.  “That is...definitely a lot.”  And pushed the whisper of fear out of her mind, because she had to believe, if she believed anything, that together they could find another way.  And she was tired of pretending that there wasn't anything she didn't miss about him, about the way he loved her and let her love him.

There were no perfect answers to their biggest problems; there never had been.  Felicity wasn't sure she would survive the drop again but she decided not to let that make her afraid of flying.  

“Laurel used to tell me,” he said, almost hesitating, “that I let my fear and my emotions control my relationships.  I don’t want to do that anymore.  Not with you.  Not with us.”

“Wow.”   _Frak_ , didn’t she know any other words?

“ _Psst_ ,” Oliver hissed into her ear.  “You said that out loud.”

Felicity groaned, but didn’t resist when he pulled her into one of his amazing, full-body hugs, wrapping an arm around her back and rubbing the back of her neck, her face tucked into the crook of his shoulder, his chin resting on the top of her head.

“Fe-li-ci-ty…” he murmured, the way he drew her name out making her shiver.

Oh, god, he was so good at that.

He chuckled, and she pulled away.  “I said that out loud, too, didn’t I?”

“Yeah,” he said, pulling her back toward him.  “It’s okay.  I’m used to it.”

She stood back up on her toes, leaning in, taking in his smile --

The bunker comm system squelched and Curtis’s voice came over the speaker, hesitant:  “Green Ar -- Sir -- Oliver?  You need to leave now if you’re going to catch that train.”

\--

It was a late night that turned into an early morning; John and the recruits had ended up in Pennytown looking into some reported gang activity.  None of them wanted to give the next Tobias Church any opportunities, and Felicity stayed in the bunker until everyone was back, changed, and headed home before finally turning off the lights and calling it a night.

Felicity kicked off her shoes as soon she opened the door to the loft, flipping on the lights and dropping her bag and coat onto a chair.  The tennis ball she left on the kitchen counter as she poured a glass of wine; the notebook came with her as she settled into the couch and fired up the DVR for last night’s Rockets game.

She traced her fingers over the simple motif of the binding, remembering how many paper shops in Tuscany she had poked through trying to find something plain enough for Oliver’s taste, remembering the small shop in Siena that had the perfect option.  Her phone buzzed, a text notification appearing on the lockscreen with Oliver’s picture next to it.

_ << <3 <3 <3 >> _

Felicity laughed out loud at the string of emojis, and thought to herself how proud Thea would be of her big brother embracing 21st-century technology.  She used to text both of them with endless strings of the little pictures, completely baffling Oliver until Felicity had finally started translating them for him.

Felicity was pretty sure Thea had done it on purpose, just to be a brat and to make Oliver pretend he didn’t love it.

The next text popped up with a photo attachment:  Oliver’s feet propped up on the desk of his hotel room, resplendent in socks with green arrows on them and the Flash backpack she’d found for William next to the room service menu.

 _ <<I’m glad you approve>>_  
_< <Also, could it be any later?>>  
_ _< <I seriously forgot how much you don’t sleep>>_

When she finished typing, Felicity opened the notebook to a page that had been marked with a Post-it and took a sip of her wine before checking the phone again.

_ <<I doubt that  8-) >> _

Which, yeah, ok, that was fair.  Also, was he seriously flirting with her over text messages right now?

_ <<It’s called hyperbole, Oliver, look it up>> _

Felicity put her phone on silent and went back to the notebook.  Journaling had been her idea for him, a way to chase out the demons and the darkness.   _“What would you say to Tommy about your life right now?”_ she’d asked him, handing him the notebook, and for the rest of the summer she would watch him scribble in it while he waited for her to come to bed.  Sometimes he would read it to her, and sometimes it would stay private, but it opened him up in a way Felicity would not have believed was possible until she saw it with her own eyes.

She blinked back a few tears at the idea that she had kept up his writing even after she had walked away, and started reading the words with an intense mixture of bitter and sweet feelings -- they weren’t addressed to Tommy anymore.

They were addressed to her.

 

_Felicity --_

_You asked me what kind of man I wanted to be._

_I want to be the kind of man who is worthy of you, and us, and this.  We’ve been through so much in the past year - alone - and sometimes I feel like we’ve forgotten how to talk to each other._

_There’s no greater luxury in the field than working with someone you rely on, someone you can trust absolutely.  You want that person with you on everything, and nothing hurts worse than losing them._

_But when you have to work alone again, you lock those feelings away and keep working._

_It’s something I’ve gotten really good at and it has never been so difficult as it has been this year.  Maybe this will help us find our way back to each other._

_I love you._

_\--Oliver_

 

Yeah.

Definitely a lot.  She reached for her phone, clicked it back on, opened up the message app, had another sip of wine.

Started typing.

_< <I love you too>>_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from "my sundown," by jimmy eat world. kinda went on an old album spiral after i posted chapter 3.
> 
> oliver's journal came straight from theshipsfirstmate post 4x06 series "make you feel my love", because, seriously, what was oliver writing while he was waiting for felicity to get home from saving ray?
> 
> thea's delight in tormenting her brother with emojis came from macha s. wicket "the unbearable hotness of being" which is seriously one of the funniest things i have ever read.
> 
> oliver's rumination on teamwork in the field adapted from burn notice, season 3, episode 8 "with friends like these"


	7. lost, and found (wherever you go, bring me home) / july, 2017

Felicity got to work early.  Not that she had a proper job, which was a window she would jump out of when she got to it - her extremely generous Palmertech severance stipend was scheduled to end in October - but it seemed wiser to focus on one life-changing decision at a time.  Besides, early was relative when crime-fighting so often involved being up all night, what with the criminals and cover of darkness, yadda yadda.  Today she just needed to get out of her apartment, and she needed coffee, and she liked her routine of being in the bunker in the morning quiet.

Only this morning, it wasn’t so quiet, which was leaving her rather more out of sorts than it usually did.

Oliver was on the ladder.

Shirtless.

_Oh, heck_.  She was going to need a lot more coffee.

He worked his way up the rungs, pausing at the top and pulling himself all the way up, hovering over the bar, and that was when he spotted her.  Their eyes met, and his lit up like they had not in a long time; he let his weight slide back down over the bar and twisted himself so that his knees hooked on the metal as he did a kind of reverse-somersault dismount.  He hit the ground and came straight for her.

“Hey,” he said as he came up onto the platform, leaning close to her to grab a towel she definitely had not accidentally-on-purpose sat next to.  It was not remotely distracting to feel the heat pouring off of his body and it absolutely did not throw her for a loop when he dropped a kiss against the top of her head.  “Would you like more coffee?”

No.  Felicity wanted _all of the coffee_.  Because, what, exactly, was supposed to happen now?

Saying ‘I love you’ didn’t solve anything besides putting them on the same page for the first time in two years - which, admittedly, was not nothing and was actually kind of huge.  But it left them in a strange, in-between space that, apparently, involved coffee and casual affection and - upside - shirtless salmon ladder workouts.

He left and came back a minute later, a fresh cup with exactly the amount of sugar and cream she liked in her old white QC mug.  “Felicity,” he said, and it was weird, sheepish and almost shy.  “I need your help with something.”

“If this is a bribe,” she said, waving between them to encompass not just the mug but the fact that he still had not put a shirt on, “I fully approve of this method of payment.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” and that was the kind of sickenly smug confidence she usually expected from him.

“And since,” Felicity continued, “I see no bullet-ridden laptops or mysterious arrows and we’re not working any specific cases right now --”

“I need you to help me find an apartment.”

She felt the crinkle in her forehead as she frowned, trying not to gape.  Oliver, for all of his restlessness, had found the house in Ivy Town; had ordered the furniture and cooed over the kitchen and laughed like a kid on Christmas when she brought home a few photographs to be framed - the first ever, practically, of the two of them, and the only ones where his smile had been real.

“The Claytons and I are bringing William back to Star City for the weekend after I run out there for his baseball game.  As you so wisely pointed out, I can’t ask a kid to stay on a cot in a basement, and the Claytons need to see that I can make a home for my son.”  Oliver was using unusual care in choosing his words, which put Felicity on her guard.   _Her_ Oliver either dove all the way in or doled out words one by one, using no more than necessary.

“Oliver --” the protest was on the tip of her tongue but something in the way he was suddenly looking at her made her change course.  It was pleading;  her Oliver never begged.  At least, not outside of certain very specific and decidedly not-suitable-for-the-bunker scenarios.  Which, great, now she had _that_ image in her head right after the shirtless salmon ladder --  “Yeah.  Of course I will.”

“Felicity Smoak --” and she could hear the relief in his voice.  “You are too good to me.”  Oliver leaned in again and pressed a kiss against her cheek, hesitating for a tantalizing second when she turned her head.

“I am, you know,” she agreed, and their lips almost brushed against each other.

The tension was so tangible between them it was nearly vibrating -- which was why, of course, the universe decided to intervene in the form of one John Diggle, who commented on it immediately.

Not with words, obviously.  He simply stood on the platform watching the two of them with such force that Felicity could swear she felt the pressure of his gaze as a physical thing between her shoulder blades.  Oliver turned to see where she was looking and was treated to one of John’s patented eyebrow-raises.

Seriously.  How could the man say so much with just a freak genetic ability to tweak one muscle a certain way?

Felicity probably should have felt sorry for Oliver when she poured her coffee into a travel mug, grabbed her purse, and went straight for the elevator; but instead all she felt was a strange sense of relief.  It didn’t last long, though -- she had escaped John’s lecture, be it verbal or functionally mute, but the knowledge that there was something deeper buried in Oliver’s request?

That followed her up, out and into the daylight.

\-- 

She was spiraling, spouting off and hand-waving and generally being excessively overdramatic - but since her audience was the one person who maybe (probably?) couldn’t hear her, Felicity decided not to let it get in the way of a good rant.

Felicity had been burning off excess energy all morning, or trying to, but wandering aimlessly through the downtown had done nothing to settle her mind.  Also, she had been wrong about _all_ of the coffee - it was just making her jumpy and rambling, though the bookstore where she had stopped for her last fix had a pleasant place to sit and a nice view of the city and a cool display about Greek mythology that ended up making her growl a little bit because it reminded her of Oliver and his weird fascination with the topic.  Seriously, who knew why you left gold coins on someone’s _eyes_ but had never read _Hamlet_?

Now, feeling cleansed, she sank back into the chair at the side of Thea’s hospital bed and picked up the book on the nightstand, surprised when it wasn’t the book she had left.  She and her almost-sister-in-law had made it to _Prisoner of Azkaban_ , and here was _Deathly Hallows_ hogging valuable table space.  Felicity had a sneaking suspicion she confirmed by flipping to the title page:  2007.

“Your brother,” she said to Thea, “is such a dork.”  Felicity pitched her voice in her best gravelly Oliver impersonation.  “‘Felicity, it’s not like I ever got to see how it ended.’”

Thea did not react to this statement, but Felicity imagined her friend rolling her eyes expressively at Oliver’s continued lack of pop-culture engagement.   _“The island excuse is getting old, Ollie,_ ” she pictured Thea saying, and followed it up by envisioning Oliver’s head tilt of frustration and that way he blew air through his nose when he was feeling put-upon by the women in his life - and, occasionally, by John Diggle.

“Ughhhhhh,” Felicity groaned.  “How can someone be so impossible and also so impossible to live without?”

_“The man has a gift,_ ” imaginary Thea agreed.    _“But did he at least put the ring back on your finger?”_

Uncanny how, even unconscious, Thea left no room for dissemination, always going straight to the point.

“It’s not that easy,” Felicity protested.  “We’re not there yet.”  Felicity wasn’t the same person who had so easily accepted his ring and his beatific smile two years ago.  He’d given her a ring and there were bullets in her spine and deaths on her conscience and a ten-year-old boy who needed a father.  Some things were still the same - the most important things - but accepting that ring had been the beginning of the end, and they didn’t need to go back to that.  A ring hadn't kept her father in her life; it hadn't kept Barry from running off into the Speed Force and it hadn't stopped her waking up in the hospital, partially paralyzed and alone.

And Oliver had still lied.

Felicity leaned back and closed her eyes, thought about a green hoodie and omelettes, a perfect quiet cul-de-sac and daylight-filtering curtains and sweaty post-workout sex that was not predicated on anyone shooting at them.  Whatever they were doing now, they were doing by choice and they were doing it without running away.  

Without getting lost.  

Felicity was so, so tired of feeling lost.

_“You’re both idiots,_ ” said the Thea in her head.

\--

 

It was lucky for the world that, after almost six years of training, Felicity was still incapable of anything resembling actual violence because right now she was feeling all kinds of homicidal and the worst part was that it was her own _gorram_ fault.

“I’m not your assistant,” she had growled at him after he spent an hour blowing up her phone with real estate listings.  “Remember?  NOT.  YOUR.  ASSISTANT.”  She had even escalated to her loud voice.

What had gotten her - what would probably always get her, drat him - was the pleading voice again.  “Felicity,” he’d said, and it was earnest and insistent and at the same time hesitant.  “Please.  I’m tied up in meetings all day and I need a girl Wednesday.”

She bit back the obvious retort because hey, they had been through this already.  But in her head she still corrected him:  it’s _Friday_.

Still, Felicity had once upgraded all of the systems in the foundry just during the eight or so hours he had been unconscious and mostly-dead, so an apartment hunt in a day must have seemed like a piece of cake to him - and maybe he was right, because here she was, sitting in the partially-furnished living room of what would become Oliver and William’s new apartment, sliding Oliver’s precious slow cooker into a cabinet under the sink and making a note on her tablet about what kind of video game console to get for William.  Oliver never had pulled his stuff out from storage, and he had enough of the basics plus the leftovers from Ivy Town to make a credible attempt at somewhere the Claytons would be comfortable leaving their grandson for the weekend.  The place was modern with a lot of sunlight and an easy walk from the bunker and from City Hall; not coincidentally, it was in the same neighborhood as the loft.

Their old loft, and his new apartment, partially furnished with the leftovers of their life in Ivy Town.  There was a joke in there, Felicity was sure, about a rabbi and a priest or a duck or anything that was somehow weirder and more incongruous than the strange places her mind was going today.

Their life in Ivy Town hadn’t been real; not the same way that what there were doing now felt real - but Oliver knew how to make a damn home for his kid, so that’s what Felicity kept telling herself and when Oliver phoned in from a late-running Council meeting miraculously uninterrupted by crime, she went straight into an airing of grievances because honest _frakking_ communication was supposed to be their thing now and Felicity was certain that Oliver had not communicated honestly with her about this whole apartment search.

“What was your problem with _Prisoner of Azkaban_?” came out first, proving that her brain had its own set of priorities.

“Felicity,” and it was so unfair when his voice did that rumbly thing that she loved, “it’s not like I ever got to see how it ended.”

Felicity couldn’t help it - she laughed, though maybe it was a little more hysterical than it should have been.

“So it worked out okay with the storage unit?”

“Five by five,” she agreed, and paused.  “Sometimes it’s amazing to me how much military slang is a normal part of my daily conversation, you know?”

“You really are too good to me,” Oliver said, and she could hear the smile and the relief in the way he said it.

“Am I?” Felicity asked softly.  “I’ve spent the day buried in boxes that may as well be from Earth-2, they feel so foreign and far away, so I would feel a lot better if we, you know, said it out loud.”

“What?” he asked, but she could hear in his voice that his guard was back up.  It was the totally-free-of-affect-blank-expression kind of 'what'.

The kind he tossed off when he knew exactly what she was saying.

“That when we left Ivy Town,” Felicity said, “I pulled you out of the one place you had been happy.  That we left, because I wanted to, that you were happy and I wasn’t and we didn’t even talk about it and now you have me apartment hunting for your son because you’ve gone and decided that you’re not capable of -- what -- making a real home?”

They knew each other so well that the words sometimes didn’t even matter, but she needed to hear him say it.

"No."

"No, what?"

"No, I'm not going to say that."

"Because you don't want to hurt my feelings?"

"Because it wouldn't be true, Felicity."  It was soft and soothing and cracking just a bit at the edge.  "Not the way you think it is."

"Aha!" she pounced, but she was intrigued more than vindicated.

Oliver chuckled, just a tiny exhalation, but it was enough to coax a small smile onto Felicity's face.  "I was happy," he admitted.  "Maybe even happier than I'd ever been.  But it wasn't real.  It wasn't honest."

It didn't make up for everything that came after, but Felicity would be lying to herself if she didn't sometimes wonder - if her unwillingness to face her boredom in Ivy Town hadn't nudged Oliver back on the old, familiar path.  How many times had she replayed in her mind that night in the temporary lair and heard him say, _"You don't want to go home_ "?

His lie had been the bigger one but both of them had sins to answer for.

"What we have now, whatever it is, is _real_ , Felicity.  Ivy Town was nothing more than a glimpse of what life could look like for us, and no matter how happy I thought I was, it didn't take away the price I had paid for it.  I traded my soul to the devil and walked away clean."

"Technically, you drove," Felicity couldn't help but point out.  "Into the sunset, with your perfect Faustian bargain."

"You know how I feel about Shakespeare, Felicity."

"Marlowe, actually, but some people think he might have been Shakespeare -- they say that maybe he faked his own death, which is a thing you know a little bit about --"

"Felicity."   _You're spiraling_.  "Whether I was willing to admit it or not, there was too much in Star City that was too important to leave behind.  There was no choice to make, do you understand me?"

Felicity exhaled, long and slow, feeling tears prick at the edges of her eyes.  "And the apartment?"

"Well," Oliver drawled the word out and ended with a little laugh.  "I'm not going to pretend I am free of all insecurity."

"So glad to see that you're finally growing as a person," she joked, her voice still a little wobbly with emotion.

"I'm trying," Oliver said with an earnestness that nearly took her breath away again.  "You chose to drive off into the sunset and help me chase my dream after three years of helping me fend off nightmares.  Maybe this time we can find our dream right here."

 

\--

 

Felicity sat back in her chair, her hands cupped around her white QC mug, and appreciated the view; if this was going to be their new routine, she was sure as heck going to enjoy it.  Okay, she had debated with herself whether or not she should actually watch him _every time_ he did this, but in the end decided that if Oliver was doing shirtless workouts again and there was no one to witness it, it may as well have never happened.  Which would be a shame, and a waste.

It was a short debate and Felicity was glad when she won it, especially since the book she was trying to read had stymied her at the first paragraph.

Tell me about a complicated man.  
Muse, tell me how he wandered and was lost…  
And where he went, and who he met, the pain  
He suffered in the storms at sea…  
Tell the old story for our modern times.

_Find the beginning._

He was at the sparring dummy today, her complicated man, going hard in a punishing rhythm that almost made her dizzy as she tried to follow his moves.  It reminded her, as so many things had done lately, of their earlier life in the foundry basement - he had that energy around him like he was so worked up about something that he needed to siphon it off anywhere he could channel it.  There were circles under his eyes and his expression was closed off, even when he slowed down and caught her watching.

“You look like something the cat dragged in,” Felicity offered as he reached for the towel that (sigh) he had dumped carelessly onto the mat.

“Um,” he frowned.  “Thanks?”

“You haven’t been sleeping.”  It really shouldn’t have been so difficult to force her eyes up from his abdominal muscles back to his face.  She had seen them before, knew how his body felt and how it tasted and how perfect all of the other bits of it were and what those bits could do to her.  “I know what you look like when you get a good night’s sleep, and it’s not --” Felicity twisted her face into a scowl “-- all, ‘grrr’.”

Oliver gave her a resigned nod and the tiniest quirk at the corner of his mouth.  “The weekend was … harder than I’d hoped it would be.”

“Oliver,” she stood from her chair, walked down the steps and to the mat until she reached him.  Grasped his arm, just like she used to.  “You can do this.  You _will_ do this.”

“You seem very sure of that.”

“I am,” Felicity said.  “You know I don’t always agree with the choices that you make, but I do know that when you make them, you think you’re doing the right thing.  Because that’s who you are.  It’s what you do.  It’s --” there was that feeling in her veins again, a release, a rush of anticipation instead of fear.  The air was charged between them, and something about it felt like it had been a long time coming.  Like she felt whole again, suddenly, finally.  “It’s what makes you the man I love.”

Felicity was tired of being lost.  It was time to find something again.

A beginning.

His mouth was on hers before she even realized it, his hand grazing her cheek before framing her face.  Her mouth was open, waiting, for that perfect mixture of his lips and his tongue, promising everything she had ever hoped for, and more.  She wrapped her arms around him, melting in to his caress.

He was so good at this.

A chuckle broke her concentration and she pulled away far enough to look him in the eye.  “Like you didn’t know,” she retorted.  “That you are good at -- _all_ of the things.”

He rested his forehead against hers, and they stood like that for a moment - breathing, laughing - together.

“So,” she said.

“Yeah,” he agreed.

“So,” she repeated as she stepped away from him, just far enough that the temptation to fall back into him wouldn’t overwhelm all of her better judgement.  “I have a plan.”  Oliver looked at her, his face open and his eyes lit up with a spark of something that looked like hope and a huge dash of barely-suppressed laughter.  

“Don’t start with me, mister.  You said you didn’t have a plan, and I think - if nothing else - last year taught us that I am good with the plans.  Wouldn’t you agree?”

“Point taken,” he conceded.  “We’ll do this your way.”

“We’re okay, Oliver.  You, me, us, this --” she gestured around the bunker.  “It’s good.  Which means that your energy goes solely into helping William, from now on.  When you think he’s getting better, we’ll talk about what comes after.  And revisit all of those other things that you are good at.”

“That,” he said with a wide smile, “is an excellent plan, Felicity.”

She kissed him on the cheek, turned, and ran back up to the platform.  “And in the meantime, I have something for you.”

She handed him the brand-new copy of _The Odyssey_ that had caught her eye in the Greek mythology display.

Oliver laughed.  “You have no idea how appropriate this is.”

“Tell me all about it later,” she said, inviting him to phone her for the first time in this bizarre whirlwind of a courtship ritual.

“Are you sure?”  he asked, but he was teasing her, not hesitating.  “The story involves Slade.”

“Well,” Felicity conceded, “since we are alive because of him, and not in spite of him - for once - I guess I can let it slide.”

Oliver’s smile grew even wider, and he winked at her, raising the hand with the book in it like a salute.  “I’ll do that.”  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the quote is the opening stanza of the new translation of "the odyssey" by emily wilson. 
> 
> it seemed obvious to me that felicity found oliver and william's new apartment - don't ask me why, but i was completely convinced of it. turns out that it is exactly what happened, at least according to season 5.5 / "fatal legacies," which came out last week and i promptly devoured. everyone got a great emotional beat who was not felicity or oliver, but i'd by lying if a few scenes between them didn't almost exactly match up my own personal headcanon. please allow for those small similarities going forward, though this story is now in the winding down phase since felicity and oliver have had their final round of The Talk.


	8. mitzvot / august, 2017

It was the explosion that did it, pushed it out of her -- the grief she hadn’t even realized she was still carrying around.  It bubbled up and sent her to the elevator and out into the city and straight for her Mini before Felicity even realized where she was going.

It was Alex Faust that did it, an expert-level scumbag with a talent for explosives, prosecuted for criminally negligent homicide by one Adrian Chase when a demolition job he’d been working on went wrong and dropped a building on several children -- including, for the final push that sent him over into insanity -- his own.  And now he was out and about and running free, blowing things up, because that was the happy fate for those prosecuted by Adrian Chase.  Maybe the explosion was poetic in its irony; a taste of fire to remind them, as if it was possible to forget, of what the smoke smelled like and how the heat felt and the way it seared into your eyes and your mouth and your throat --

Wait.  No.  Irony was definitely the wrong word.   _Three, two, one_.

But even from beyond the grave Adrian Chase’s vendetta continued to haunt them.

It was the deadman’s switch that did it, one just like Adrian Chase had, at the end, and Felicity had only been on comms with no video, listening to Dinah’s scream fade into the smoke and Rene cough and Curtis babble and John hadn’t been able to get a clean shot and Oliver -- _her_ Oliver -- had hesitated (Oliver never hesitated) and a boat laced with explosives had almost detonated off the shore of a beach full of scouts on an overnight jamboree camping trip before Oliver had sent an arrow into the pile of Semtex and jumped into Starling Bay and Felicity’s heart had stopped, had honest-to-goodness stopped, when the comm crackled out from the water and she still had no _frakking_ video --

It was just another glamorous night on Team Arrow, and so Felicity had run, up the stairs and to her car and into the daylight until she stood here.  Kneeled, really, because her stupid heels had sank into the dewy early morning grass, as she reached into her pocket for a small rounded stone she had picked up off the service road.

 _William Malone_ was emblazoned on the gravestone, and when she placed the rock from her pocket at the base of it, Felicity traced the name out with her fingertips, tears spilling over like they hadn’t done in months.

_“It’s my job, Felicity.”_

_“If there’s a killer out there, I’m going to find him.  Especially when he is a threat to someone I care about.”_

It was the fight that did it, the fight with Oliver, the fight that was so stupid she didn’t even remember what they had been fighting about now that it was over.  Felicity and Oliver had fought almost every night over the comms even before Billy had died and she had gotten so used to it that she had forgotten how wrong it had been the entire time, how wrong it had felt, because everything had been wrong and felt wrong since the day she had stood on her own two feet and walked away.  Only now, everything was in its right place and Felicity was sleeping on the right side of the bed and Oliver was _her_ Oliver again, maybe, she hoped (she knew), but they were still wasting time arguing.

And Billy was still in the ground.

_“I’m a cop, Felicity, it’s my job.”_

_“You know how I feel about you, but I have to be true to who I am.”_

Felicity and Billy had argued and it had been the last time they’d ever spoken.  And the irony -- right word this time -- was that it was just another variation on the theme she’d been playing with Oliver for five years:  “my life, my choice.”  She had been so unprepared for it, really, even after all of the times she had watched Oliver walk out into the field and make ridiculous choices -- even after Laurel -- but somehow she had forgotten the one truth in their lives:  heroes didn’t always come home.

A cleared throat, a touch at her elbow, and a grunt as a knee sank into the ground next to her.  “May I?” Oliver said, indicating a stone in his hand.

Mutely, Felicity nodded, and Oliver added it to the small pile Felicity had been accumulating since they’d lost Billy.   _Curtis_.  Curtis would have pinged her phone.  The stone was more of a mystery.  Oliver settled back on his heels with a small wince -- the equivalent of a scream, really -- and Felicity ran her hand over his knee.

“How bad is it?”

Oliver shook his head.  “It’s --”

“Don’t say _fine_ ,” Felicity said.

“--fine.”  Oliver moved to stand, holding out arms locked at the elbows so she could pull herself up, not letting go when she did.  His hand brushed her elbow, guiding her toward a small bench on the path back to the road, and they sat.  “I’m sorry I couldn’t save him for you,” he said finally.

“I never blamed you for that,” Felicity said, because it was true and because he deserved to know it.  Chase would have gone after Billy sooner or later; he was a target from the moment Evelyn had started informing on the team.

“That’s the thing about what we do,” Oliver sighed.  “Sometimes --”

“We lose,” Felicity finished.  “I know.”

“Detective Malone knew that too, Felicity.”  His voice was quiet and a little bit broken.  “He did it anyway, just like we do.”  Oliver shifted his weight with another grunt, but intercepted her hand when she reached for his knee again.  “He was a good man, and he loved you.”

Felicity’s breathing sped up, and she tightened her grip on Oliver’s hand.  “It wasn’t the same,” she said quietly.   _Nothing_ in her life had been the same, had felt the same, as loving him had done.

“Felicity.”   _I know_.  “But you loved him, and I couldn’t even be there for you.  You just went somewhere, farther and farther away, and it’s not like I could sit there and pretend I hadn’t ever wanted revenge and to hell with everything else.”  Oliver let go of her hand, leaning forward on propped elbows and resting his head there, eyes down, his hands locked around the back of his neck.  “I thought to myself, this is what it must have been like, trying to hold on to me all these years, but I knew that if I did anything it could just hurt you even more.  One wrong move, and everything would blow up.”

“Literally, as it turned out,” Felicity couldn’t stop herself saying.  It was meant to be funny but wasn’t, so she shifted closer to him, a hand on his thigh and the other rubbing across his shoulders.

“Watching you cross the line made me wonder if there even was one,” Oliver confessed.  “I spend so much of my life wearing a mask to forget who I am, but you --”  He sighed, a long exhale, his shoulders relaxing fractionally under her touch.  “One of the reasons I fell in love with you is because you show me who I want to be.”  He sat up, and wiped his palms under his eyes.  “You told me I was a good man, like him, and it was this beautiful moment of grace.  I wish I could have given that back to you.”

“We fought,” Felicity blurted out, mostly because the way Oliver was looking at her was going to make her cry again.  “Billy and I, we fought.  The last time I saw him, we fought.  I begged him -- ordered him -- not to go.”

“Felicity,” Oliver said, and it meant _I love you_ and _you can do this_ and _please listen to me_.  “He would have gone anyway.  It was his job.  You know that better than anyone.”

 

\--

 

There was a pile of rocks on Laurel’s headstone, too, bigger than the one Felicity had been generating on her own.  She looked at Oliver, the inquiry in her eyes.

“Contrary to popular belief, I do know how to google,” he said seriously, with just a hint of a grin teasing the corners of his mouth.  “Rory explained it to me after we lost Billy, that it is a _mitzvah_ to leave a stone behind and help maintain the marker.”  Felicity didn’t have to work to summon the smile at Oliver’s Hebrew pronunciation.  The man was a sworn atheist but had always been respectful of her traditions, even curious.  “It -- reminded me of how we remembered people on the island.  It felt right, more permanent …?”  His voice trailed off as he looked at her.

She wrapped a hand around his wrist, his other hand grasping hers where they were joined.

“In the place where the Dominators took me,” Oliver said quietly into the silence, “I was going to marry Laurel.”

Felicity felt her forehead crinkle.  Neither Thea, nor Sara, nor Diggle had ever shared their visions.  All Thea would say was that she had seen her parents again; Sara had confessed that it was a world where the _Gambit_ had never gone down.

“It was perfect, and right.  And then -- I saw you, Felicity.  You didn’t recognize me.  I think that is when I knew I needed to break out of there.”  He turned to look at her.  “It wasn’t like I was trying to come back to you,” he said, and she knew that he meant it.  “I was trying to be selfless, I was trying to let you go and move forward.  But that life wasn’t full, and I left Laurel crying on the back steps of my old house.”

Felicity dropped her head onto his shoulder.  “I didn’t love him,” she admitted.  “Maybe I would have, but we weren’t there yet."  _And I was keeping the door open for us,_ she did not admit.  Because seeing him with Susan -- seeing him working so hard to respect her and move on -- had just reminded her of how much she didn't want to.

Oliver shifted, his body reclining into the bench and pulling her with him so that he could wrap an arm around her shoulder.

“The last thing Laurel said to me was that she loved me,” he said finally.  “She said that I was the love of her life, but that you were the love of mine.  She told me to find my way back to you.”  Oliver’s head turned so he could press a kiss against her forehead.  “Nothing was ever the same for me, either.”

 

\--

 

Oliver and Felicity walked back to the service road, his fingers wrapped around one of hers.  Her ring finger, to be precise, and Felicity let herself wonder - would it be so hard?  He had already said the words -- their lives already made the words almost meaningless.  In sickness and in health -- for better or for worse -- till death do us part?  

They had already dealt with all of those things.  And she wanted to be with him forever, for however long was left to them.

The Ducati was parked behind her Mini, and Felicity let him open the door for her before she spoke.  “We fought, Oliver.”

“Felicity, honey.”   _It’ll be okay._

“Not Billy and me,” she clarified.  “We fought, Oliver.  You and I.  Last night, before you almost got blown up.  Again.  Before you jumped off a burning boat with no eye in the sky and a broken comm.  I don’t even remember what we were fighting about.”

Oliver pursed his lips, his brow furrowed.  The man had a face built for frowns, the way it accentuated all of the angles of his face and the shape of his jaw.  He shook his head and said, “I don’t remember, either.”

“Why did you hesitate?”

He closed his eyes, his face blank.  “It was the deadman's switch,” Oliver said after a minute.  “It threw me for a minute.  William --”  Oliver scrubbed a hand down his face.  “William still has nightmares about the dead man switch on the boat.  About stepping over Chase’s body when he killed himself.”  

"And you?" Felicity asked, voice barely a whisper.

"Add it to my very long list," he said.  Oliver visibly shook himself, shook it off, opened his eyes and looked at her.  “New rule,” he said.  “No going into the field - or ending the night - angry.  We’ll check in, every night.”

“I think,” Felicity said, “that was our old rule.”  Their old rule, usually involving excellent make-up sex and not scheduled communications, but  _baby steps_.

"Promise," he said, extending his hand through the open window of her Mini.  She grabbed it, holding it for just a second, before she got in the car.

Felicity was smiling again as he shut the door and watched her drive away.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the encounter with Faust is adapted from "fatal legacies," the season 5.5 novelization. the broad strokes of the encounter are the same, i just upped the angst and used my own words.
> 
> the jewish mourning ritual of leaving stones in a graveyard has a lot of different interpretations and origin stories. i was always taught that its purpose was to keep the marker permanent, before the tradition of permanent headstones as markers, though there are other explanations. also, in judaism, you do not erect a headstone for the first eleven months after the funeral - hence the need for a marker. felicity is very culturally jewish and it seems to me that she would take comfort in, and utilize, this ritual in mourning her friends. 
> 
> one of the things i miss about rory/ragman is that he, unlike felicity, is not just culturally jewish but very involved with jewish mysticism. we know from the few episodes he was in that he would happily explain and answer questions, even from our resident skeptical atheist, oliver queen. i'm guessing that oliver saw felicity leaving stones on laurel's grave and asked rory about it. (side note: as a jewish person, i am not sure which was more thrilling -- having jewish numerology, the gamatria, be the key to saving everyone from the aliens or hearing oliver trying to pronounce "besheret". but the time he confused moby dick with the torah was pretty funny, too)


	9. becoming who we are / september, 2017

It had been a really long week - or at least, that is what Felicity would tell herself later, as an excuse, when she tries to figure out why neither of them saw the photographer.  It had been more than a long week, actually, it had been a really long -- everything, and with a lot more going on than "summer vacation."

She had been trying to explain the concept of Quentin's "summer vacation" to Iris just a few days ago, killing time in the Cortex at S.T.A.R. Labs, and realized that Quentin really had no idea what he has talking about.

“So the first year,” Iris had asked, “Oliver ran off to an island in the North China Sea?”  

As one does.

“And the second year..?”

Well, come to think of it, that second summer of Team Arrow had been a time blissful in its simplicity, uncomplicated except for the...time she bought Oliver a bed.  And a plant.  And the way he had been shirtless, all the time shirtless --

Yeah.  Nope.

Also, lots of bad guys had been running around.  It was a very busy time.

“Tell me the thing about the League of Assassins again?”

Oh, sure, the time she had handed her heart over to the man she loved and then drugged him in an attempt to make him not do the thing he was hell-bent on doing.  Before he had locked them all in a prison cell underneath the Hindu Kush mountains, and after he had spent about eight months making everyone miserable.  But the Porsche was nice.  A little cramped in the back seat, though...

“Oh, Barry never mentioned that Ollie moved to Ivy Town.”   _Ollie_.  Barry always said it like he was a member of some secret boys’ club when he called Oliver by his childhood nickname.  “Why did you leave?”

Good question, Iris.

“Wait, Oliver has a kid?”

Right?

“So is that why you two broke up?”

Yeah, about that…

“How did you do it, Iris?” Felicity asked her friend.  “Barry didn’t tell you that he was the Flash.  How did you...you know…move on from that?  How did you trust each other again?”

Iris looked taken aback.

“Barry had this huge secret,” Felicity said, totally ignoring the guilty twinge reminding her that she had encouraged Barry to keep that secret.

“Barry had a whole universe of secrets,” Iris said finally, looking at her in a way that let Felicity know Iris absolutely considered her part of that universe.  “But whether I confronted it or accepted it, nothing would ever be the same again and there was nothing I could do about that.”

Not unlike, say, finding a billionaire bleeding on the backseat of your car with the greasepaint from his vigilante aesthetic running down his face.  Definitely a life-changer.  Or the time said billionaire told you he loved you before either of you was sure that was true.

“And aren’t we lucky,” Felicity said with some feeling, “to live such normal lives.”

“There is no normal,” Iris said.  “And without that love - what else matters? Love is the only thing that makes the fight worth it.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Felicity said, "if only we had something to drink."  

“Barry was actually kind of a jerk about the whole thing,” Iris continued, but she said it fondly.  “He reminded me that what we had was too important, and too complex, and that neither of us was perfect.”  She paused, leaned forward, and rested her hand on top of Felicity’s.  “Are you saying that Oliver didn’t tell you about his son?”

“Yeah, well,” Felicity said with a sigh.  “Neither of us is perfect, either.  We kind of do this thing where we - between his trust issues, I mean, and my abandonment issues - we sort of hurt each other.  Mostly out of fear, I think.”

“Felicity,” Iris said, “What are you afraid of?”

Felicity waved a hand expressively.  “What is it you guys call it here?  An entire rogues’ gallery of nightmares?”

(That wasn’t the real answer.)

“I get that,” Iris said.  “But what’s worse than the pain of never taking the chance?”

The weight of regret would have pulled her into the darkness either way.

“It doesn't matter," Felicity said.  “And we always turn back to each other in the end.”

“Because,” Iris said simply, as if she was explaining it to a small child, “what you have is too important.”

 

\--

 

He was sitting in the chair on the far side of Thea's bed, silhouetted by the early morning sunlight.  Felicity stopped in the doorway to take him in and watch him while he dozed.  His jacket was draped across Thea's legs, his shirtsleeves rolled up, his hair on edge but also rumpled, as if he had been running his hands through it.  He needed a haircut, and a shave.

He was beautiful.

"When you look at me like that," Oliver said, his eyes still closed and a hint of a smile at the edges of his mouth, "I might as well be naked."

Felicity knew they were, for all intents and purposes, alone, but still darted furtive glances - first to her left, then to her right - before she answered.  "Meh," she answered, affecting boredom.  "It's nothing I haven't seen before."

Something that was almost a giggle - if men like Oliver Queen ever giggled - escaped him as he opened his eyes and looked at her.

"How was your trip?"

"Iris has really taken the reins over there," Felicity said with admiration.  "I ended up just modifying some of Cisco's user-interface preferences so that they better suited Iris, and then stood back and watched her do her thing."

"Good," he said, exhaustion seeping into his voice as he ran a hand through his hair.  "That's good."  He looked at his watch.  "You're back so early."

"I wanted to see you," Felicity explained, "before you left to pick up William."  There was probably a metaphor somewhere, about all of the back-and-forth they had done with the whole S.T.A.R. Labs thing and William-visiting, neither of them in the same place, both of them moving in opposite directions; but it had suited them.  Trust needed to be earned back, and fear pushed away.  Felicity wasn't sure she would trade the past four months' worth of late night and early morning conversations for a perfect fairy tale ending even if she had the choice.

"I'm glad you did," he said sincerely.  "Because I am really nervous."

“I can see that,” Felicity said.  “Faust is running around somewhere and your son is coming to live with you and Thea -- well, so much for summer vacation.”

“We’re never calling it that again,” Oliver said with total seriousness.

 

\--

 

_< <Felicity.>>  
_ _< <FELICITY.>>_

Was it weird, Felicity wondered, if she could hear his voice in her head?  The irritation and curiosity and increasing urgency;  _focus_ and  _pay attention_ and  _help please now_.

_< <This feels accusatory>>_

_< <Yeah.>>_  
_< <Trust that instinct.>>_  
_< <Why is Iris texting me about my schedule?>>  
_ _< <Why does Iris know about my schedule?>>_

_< <Iris is running Cisco and Wally through some drills and she does not mess around>>_  
_< <I think you should go over there and see what they are up to>>  
_ _< <By which I mean I told Iris you would>>_

There was a pause, during which Felicity imagined three languages' worth of invective directed straight at her.  She spared a moment of gratitude that she had never shown Oliver how to access other alphabets on his phone.  Her phone buzzed again and a string of Cyrillic letters danced across the screen.

_< <Seriously??!>>_

  _< <I know how to do things, Felicity.>>_  
  
That made her smile.  Felicity honestly could not remember the last time - or any time - that they had bantered like this, and certainly not via text message.  The latter likely had more to do with necessary OpSec on a crowded express train than anything else, but it still felt --

It felt different.  And it was really, really nice.

_< <Just go over there>>  
_ _< <Cisco has a new suit and everything>>_

Cisco also had some gear specifically for Oliver, either to leave in Central City against the inevitable later-date emergency or to bring home and put to use, including a new bow that Felicity had been working on for part of their "summer vacation."

Because, obviously, now that Oliver had put his foot down she was going to call it nothing else.

_< <Felicity.  You know how that vibing shit freaks me out.>>_

Oliver had seen more of the world than most, and often admitted to knowing that the world was bigger and older than most people were prepared to believe, but even he had limits.  It shouldn't have made her laugh, but she was giddy with the fun of texting him, of talking to him like normal people did in their day-to-day lives -- if their day-to-day lives involved reminiscing about alien abductions and the time their friend with superpowers had helped Oliver get to a ship that traveled through time.

_< <Yes>>_  
_< <This is my concerned face>>  
_ _< < :-| >>_

_< <Felicity!>>_

Sigh.  Okay, serious time.  She stuck her tongue out at the phone in protest.

_< <It also saved your life, mister>>_

_< <Point taken.>>_

Speaking of serious --

_< <Oliver>>  
_ _< <You are not allowed to shoot anyone>>_

 

_\--_

 

Dinah Drake, the Black Canary, was the kind of person who didn’t bat an eyelash when Diggle handed her a bo staff and expected that to be her primary weapon, which made her the perfect person to deliver the day’s bad news.  (Literally.)  She did it with no personal commentary, no innuendo, no curiosity.  Not even a raised eyebrow or a smile when she saw Felicity sitting in the leather chairs off to the side - by the salmon ladder - to better hide from Curtis, or at least see him coming.

Felicity’s news alert had already done its job, but she needed to see the hard copy, and there it was:   _Mayor Handsome Spotted with Ex-Fiancee, Former CEO._

Below was a photograph of the two of them, engaged in nothing scandalous but certainly the first public sighting of them together in over a year (the article did not fail to note this), leaving the hospital on the morning Oliver had left for Central City.  They were standing close to each other, smiling at each other.  Not touching, but they didn’t need to be; even through the paparazzi zoom lens Felicity felt like a voyeur watching an intimate moment.

She showed it to Dinah, who shrugged and said, “Sometimes when the two of you look at each other it’s like there is no one else in the room.”  

 

\--

 

“ _How W’rin Bu Lai, Whai W’rin Bu Jwo_ ,” Oliver muttered.  “Shit.”

“Him,” Felicity said, “you are allowed to shoot.”  

Oliver did that thing where he just stared at her, because he wasn’t following the conversation happening in her head.

“As opposed to Cisco,” Felicity said, with just a hint of a smile.

“I didn’t shoot Cisco,” Oliver protested, “which I know you know because it’s been over a week since I saw him.  Not that I wasn’t tempted.”

“I told him I would take down the S.T.A.R. Labs satellite if he put those photographs of you training online,” Felicity informed him.  “No harm done.  But this guy --”  she tapped the photo in the _Star City Star_ , “This guy, you can shoot.”

“Or girl?”

“Oh, look who is all egalitarian.”  They were both sitting in the small seating area in the bunker, and Felicity got up to stand behind him and put a hand on his shoulder.  “I know you already had a hard day - though, I’m not going to lie, I did spare a few minutes to picture you going school supply shopping, because have you ever even _been_ in a Target?”

Oliver exhaled through his nostrils and cocked his head at her.

“More importantly,” she said, correctly interpreting his desire to move on, “Did you see the photographer?  Because I’m wondering if we have more to worry about than some lucky paparazzo.”

“I’ve seen them before,” Oliver admitted.  “Not that day, but on others.  Apparently ‘Mayor’s Sister in a Coma’ was old news.”  He scrubbed his hand across his face.

“William hasn’t seen this, has he?” Felicity asked.  There were multiple layers of unease in that simple question, and Felicity wasn't sure if she was prepared to peel away any of them.

“No.”  He fell silent, absently pulling at the hand on his shoulder until she was perched on the arm of his chair.  His hand ran up and down her arm, and Felicity shivered.  Not an erotic gesture, but an intimate one, and it made her shiver.

“I don’t think I ever realized,” Oliver said softly, his voice sounding far away, “how often I used to touch you until I couldn’t any more.”  His hand stilled on top of hers and he drew in a breath as he seemed to make up his mind.  “Felicity?”

She had never, in six years, heard him say her name like that before.  Felicity froze, her heart racing, her breathing suddenly a bit erratic.  For a minute, every fear she had been harboring since they had come home from Lian Yu bubbled up to the surface, the uneasy feeling that had crystallized when she had seen the photo, and she realized she had braced herself.  For an end, for an excuse, for some new flavor of _“I can’t be a superhero and be with you”_ that now included the very real needs of a young boy.  

Because things were going well and that  _never_ ended well for them.

Add to that she wasn’t there yet - she wasn’t ready to be raising a kid.

“I love you,” Oliver said, his voice completely even and deadly serious.  “I want to spend my life with you.  But with William - it’s been very hard making all of these things fit together.  I don’t want to be in some holding pattern forever --”

Relief, happiness, excitement, and even a little bit of sadness were all swirling around in her brain, which was unfortunate because it was vitally important that she make words.  “But we’re not there yet,” Felicity said, after taking a minute to compose herself.  “It’s not time for grown-up steps yet.”

_Find the_   _beginning._

“I still believe we can do this,” he said.   “Do you?”

“Yes,” she whispered.   _Yes_.

“I just think that, for a little while, we should keep some distance.  Outside the bunker, at least.”

Felicity slid off the chair and rested a knee on the floor, wrapping his hand with both of hers.  “All part of the plan,” she said.  “If that is what you think is best for William, and for you, that is what we will do.  And I’ll help you both with whatever you need.”  She stood up and pressed a kiss against his cheek before she returned to her chair.

“You’re okay with this?”

“Do I still get my nightly check-in?”

“Honestly,” he said, and it was stunning to watch him visibly try to keep his emotions in check.  “It’s the best part of my day.”

“Mine too,” Felicity said, feeling suddenly shy, wanting to break away from the intensity of his eyes and at the same time wanting desperately to drown in it.  “So we’re great.  For now, at least.”  She leaned forward, breaking eye contact, and picked up the newspaper.  “You know what this means, don’t you?”

Oliver flashed her the small almost-smile that let her know he was laughing with her.  “I do,” he said.  “How long do we have?”

“Not long.  You’re self-evidently still news in spite of your best efforts to not urinate on cop cars.”  

Oliver choked as he sipped on his glass of vodka.

“If it’s online,” Felicity reminded him, “I can find it.  But this will make it to Vegas eventually.  I disabled all of her news alerts years ago, but hard copy --”  She raised an eyebrow at his poorly-concealed snort.

“That was gratitude, not judgement,” Oliver insisted.  

 

\--

 

Felicity activated the comms as the team left the bunker, as always.  Dinah had gotten a tip on some gang activity connected to a new group they were calling ‘the Skulls’; her sources had heard they might be working for Faust.

“Cisco would so not approve of that name,” Felicity muttered to herself, reaching for her phone as it buzzed an incoming text message.  “Hey,” she said into the comm as she read it.  “Chatty Cathy.”

“Chatty _what_?” Wild Dog said.

“Not this again,” groaned Spartan.

"No," Mr. Terrific insisted.  "It's cute!  I love the mating rituals of straight people."

“Overwatch,” Green Arrow said, “I’m not sure this is the best --”

“You’re riding to the scene, not chasing down mirakuru soldiers,” Felicity said.  “And I heard from your BFF.”

"No way, Hoss, you got friends?"  Rene snickered.

“Donna’s in town?” Spartan asked.

“All the free babysitting you want,” Felicity confirmed.  “Not now, I mean, when she gets here.”

"I love your Mom," Mr. Terrific said. 

“So how long did we end up having?” Oliver wanted to know.

“Not long enough,” Felicity groaned.  “She’ll be here in the beginning of October.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "this feels accusatory" - a text message from barry allen to felicity smoak in "the unbearable hotness of being" by macha s wicket. 
> 
> _"How W’rin Bu Lai, Whai W’rin Bu Jwo"_  
>  \- “good luck don’t come, bad luck don’t leave.”  
> (translation according to "Gorram Chinese", a glossary of chinese slang appropriated in _Firefly_ , mostly for fun and because i 100% believe Felicity is a browncoat.)
> 
> _here comes the rain again_  
>  falling from the stars  
> drenched in my pain again  
> becoming who we are  
> as my memory rests  
> but never forgets what i've lost  
> wake me up when september ends   
> \-- green day, "wake me up when september ends"
> 
> why, yes, i am reliving my college emo phase. #sorrynotsorry


	10. we'll go to sleep (but this time not alone) / october, 2017

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (and if i hurt you, then i'm sorry  
> please don't think that it was easy)
> 
> did you know i missed you?  
> i missed you.  
> and then you'll bring me home  
> and we'll go to sleep, but this time not alone  
> and you'll kiss me in your living room...  
> \-- something corporate, "konstantine"

“Uh-uh,” Felicity said, shaking her head in mock disappointment.“No.Absolutely not.”

Oliver was approaching her, a bag in his hand.“Absolutely not, what?”

“We had a clear understanding,” Felicity said, “of how the system of bribes in this relationship was going to work.You want a favor, you know how to ask for it.”

Oliver put the bag down on the table, far enough away from her computers that she wouldn’t have to yell at him, and grinned.

No, he leered.

“Seriously?”He plucked at his shirt, head cocked, eyebrows raised.“I think it was easier to get a favor out of the Bratva.”

“A deal is a deal, Oliver,” she insisted.“I don’t make the rules.”

“Pretty sure you did,” he muttered, starting to unbutton his shirt.

Felicity gave herself a second to consider actually letting him do it, but then she stood and walked the few steps to where the food was, and stilled him with a touch on his arm.

“But seriously,” she said.“That had better not be Chinese food, because I have completely sworn off Chinese food.”

“Is that so?”

“Pure self-defense,” Felicity said.“It is a tool of seduction used by unfairly beautiful men looking to ensnare innocent women.”

“Good thing I brought sushi, then,” Oliver deadpanned.He picked up the bag and dropped his head until he was practically whispering in her ear.“Also,” he said, “I think you seduced me.”

“You say tomato,” Felicity said, waving her hand as if to dismiss him as irrelevant, but actually savoring the moment and the ease between them that no longer felt new and strange but normal and wonderful and hard-earned as they joked and flirted about one of the more devastating nights in the history of their relationship.

After more than two years in the bunker - and nearly six of being in her workspace - Oliver knew Felicity’s feelings about food in the vicinity of her computers, and took the food down to the big table.Felicity pulled the plastic containers out of the bag and shook her head when Oliver offered her a set of paper-wrapped chopsticks.“I’m always uncomfortable with chopsticks,” she said.“Did you know that in Japan they don’t use chopsticks to eat sushi?”

“I did know that.”

“Though I feel like you could probably use them to take someone out if we were attacked right now.”

“Obviously.”

“But I’m guessing that is probably not something they use chopsticks for in Japan, either.”

“Maybe,” Oliver conceded.“Or maybe that is where I learned how to do it.”

“Oliver Queen,” Felicity said in amazement.“Did you just make multiple jokes?In a row?Be still my heart.”

He winked at her, and they settled in to eat for a few minutes before Oliver said, “Thank you.I really needed this.”

Bad guys still needed arrow-ing, obviously, but the city still needed a mayor and Oliver was working hard to focus on William and give him whatever support and help he could; long story short, Felicity had not seen Oliver like this in several weeks.But every night he would phone, talking about everything and nothing in the soft, sleepy, relaxed, open and artless voice she had only ever heard in the bed they had once shared.Somehow, against all odds, in spite of everything between them, the things that tied them together and the things that kept them apart, they had found another way.

Felicity was happy.And she was proud of him.“How’s William?” she asked.

Oliver lowered his hand to the table, dropping the chopsticks against the glass as he shook his head.“Not great,” he admitted.“He’s … angry.All the time.He barely speaks to me, and the woman I hired to help around the apartment quit today.”Felicity made a face, which he caught.“What?”

“Oliver,” she said as gently as she could.“Of course he is angry.And - everything else aside - he is your son.”She paused, considering her words.“When I saw your apartment, with its little cave of a bedroom — I knew that if William was anything like you, he would want space to be alone and to think.”Oliver was looking at her, curious and receptive, so she kept going, hoping against hope that she wasn’t completely overstepping the carefully-drawn boundaries of their new-old relationship, and definitely not sure if she meant his boundaries or her boundaries or both.“I also knew that when I lost my father, that was what I wanted.Also—“

No.This was definitely into overstepping territory.

“Also?”

Felicity steeled herself.“Also, um, therapy is a thing?”

“Felicity,” he said, and stopped to think.There was hesitation in the way he said her name, but not anger or frustration.“He has - had - a therapist.Lyla gave me a recommendation for someone from A.R.G.U.S. who had the clearance and the background.But William didn’t want to go any more, now that we are here in Star City.”

Were they really doing this?

Were they - was she - really ready for this?

“I don’t know what to say,” Oliver admitted.“What to tell him, what not to tell him, how to talk to him or how to give him space.He’s still getting used to me.But I love him, and I worry about him.And you’re right — he is so much like me when I was his age.”Oliver frowned.“My parents had no idea what to do with me.”

“And yet, here you are,” Felicity prompted.“So who got through to you?”

“Raisa,” he said instantly.“She saved me.My parents weren’t exactly—“

“Focused? Felicity asked.

Oliver shrugged.“Raisa made it easier.”

“Sounds like you already know what to do,” Felicity said.

“You knew what to do,” he corrected her.“Just like I knew you would.You have such a way with people, I wish—“ Oliver broke off, and looked at her. _I wish you had been with me_ , the look said, Felicity reading it as easily as she could decipher the ways he said her name.He shook his head, and Felicity wasn’t sure if she was disappointed or relieved.

“We’ll get there,” she whispered, reaching over and squeezing his hand, then pulling it back. _I’ll get there_.

“You’ll help me find her?” Oliver asked.

“Really,” Felicity said, with what she hoped was an encouraging smile.“I’m hurt you even felt the need to ask.”

Oliver’s phone buzzed, and he glanced down to see the text message.“It’s Quentin,” he said.“Something urgent has come up at City Hall.He needs me there right now.”A wry smile twisted his face.“He says, ‘Bring the brains of your operation.’I guess dinner will have to wait.”A beat, and then:“Not that this was — dinner, I mean, not, like, a date.”

“Good,” Felicity said, and Oliver cocked his head.“Not, like, good good, but—“ She gestured at his after-work attire of doffed jacket, rumpled shirt and rolled-up sleeves.“Not that I don’t appreciate the casual wardrobe—“because, yeah, messily, partially-undressed Oliver was definitely a sight to appreciate “—but I imagined something a little more formal.And less favor-focused.”

“I will take that under advisement,” he said, a hand at the small of her back as they entered the elevator.

“When it’s — when we’re ready for that, I mean.”

He took her hand, giving it a squeeze before dropping it.“We’ll get there.”

 

—

 

Felicity, Quentin, Dinah and Oliver stood around Oliver’s desk.“We have a situation,” Quentin said.“Someone just blew up part of the Star City Bridge.”

“Faust?” Felicity asked.

“What’s the damage?” Oliver wanted to know.

“First responders are already on the scene,” Dinah reported.“As far as we can tell, the bridge is not in any danger of collapsing.No casualties.If I’m guessing, he wanted a way to get our attention.”

“It worked,” Oliver said, his voice tight with energy, his fingers twitching.There was a knock at the door, and Oliver’s assistant came in holding a package. 

“Someone just delivered this for you, Mayor Queen,” he said.

Without waiting, Oliver tore open the envelope and pulled out a small flash drive. 

“Felicity?”He reached a hand out for her tablet without even looking just as she was putting it there.Oliver plugged the drive in and a video popped up on the small screen.

_“Hello, Mayor Queen.I won’t waste any of your time, because this is serious business.By now you’ve guessed that I blew up the Star City Bridge - well, not exactly, but I set it on fire and now you know I am both able and willing to blow things up if you don’t give me what I want.”_

Felicity drew in a deep breath, hating Adrian Chase all over again.

_“Wire twenty-three hundred bitcoins to this account or I will use this to blow up a significant landmark in Star City.”_

The camera pulled back, revealing a ballistic missile.

 _“You have two weeks, ”_ Faust concluded. _“The deadline is midnight, October 12th.”_

 

\--

 

A squeal, high in pitch and coming seemingly from everywhere at once, was already in progress as Felicity opened the door.“Hi, Mom,” she said, making way for Donna Smoak to enter the loft.They embraced, hugging tightly, her mom’s body swinging back and forth with enthusiasm and carrying Felicity along with it.Donna pulled back abruptly, and Felicity assumed she was assessing her at-home comfort wear of faded pajama bottoms and camisole tank top for its sexiness factor until Donna apologized.“Sorry, baby,” she said.“I didn’t mean to squeeze so tight.”

Felicity’s hand went automatically to the base of her spine.“What?Oh, don’t worry.You won’t hurt me.” _Unless you have a portable EMP._ She grabbed her mom’s suitcase, wrangling it into the apartment and shutting the door behind them, making it to the kitchen countertop just in time to hear the buzz of an incoming text.Oliver’s face lit up on the lockscreen along with a photo attachment.Donna was kicking her heels off by the front door, so Felicity unlocked the phone to find a picture of Oliver with his arm around a handsome older woman, a huge smile on his face as he towered over her.

  _< < Raisa’s first day. >>_  
_< < She says I am not allowed to speak Russian to her.>>  
__< < Apparently my accent makes me sound like a criminal._>>

 A sound, part snort and part laugh, escaped her, catching Donna’s attention.“What’s so funny, baby?”

“It’s nothing,” Felicity said, putting the phone back down.“Oliver got a new nanny for his son and today was her first day.”

Donna’s eyes narrowed and she went straight for the kill.“How is Oliver?”

“Wow,” Felicity said.“Ninety seconds before you needed to know about my love life.”

“Felicity Meghan Smoak —“

“You know I hate it when you use my entire name like that.”

“—Answer your mother when she talks to you.”Donna dug around in her little cocktail purse on its chain, pulling out a carefully cut newspaper clipping to wave in her daughter’s face.“I may not need to know about all of your secrets but do not pretend I have never seen the two of you lit up like that before.”

“Mom,” Felicity sighed, trying to be patient as she took the clipping from Donna.“Oliver’s son just moved here.His mother was killed in a car accident.Her car exploded.”At least, that was the story A.R.G.U.S. had the backstopping for.“His sister is in the hospital.It’s complicated.”

“It always is with you two,” Donna said ruefully.

 

—

 

_< < Quentin wants to promote Rene.>>_

_< < My mom wants to visit Thea >>_

_< < You win.>>_

 

—

 

“It’s an MGM-140 ATAC-MS,” Felicity confirmed.

Curtis nodded.“Run the specs.”

“Surface-to-surface, range of one hundred-plus miles, and can be fired from almost anything.”

“Right, because why make it hard to fire off a missile?”

“Solid propellant fuel.GPS and inertial navigation system.”

Curtis seized on that.“Interesting!”

“Why is that interesting?” Oliver wanted to know, striding into the bunker.

“It means we know he is close,” Curtis said.“Short range on that thing.”

“Yes,” Felicity said drily.“Because a hundred-mile radius really narrows it down.We’re just seconds away from catching him.”

“Oh, we’ll catch him,” Oliver said firmly.

“I should mention also that with that kind of navigational system I should be able to configure the T-spheres to pick up his signal.”

“See?” Oliver said to Felicity.“Easy.So go home and be with your mother.”

“Oliver --”

“Family is precious,” Oliver reminded her, maneuvering himself so that Curtis couldn’t stare at them quite so easily.

“Oliver,” Felicity said again, “The last time I left because my mother was in town, my ex-boyfriend kidnapped both of us and held the city hostage while he tried to rob the Federal Reserve using a virus he stole from me.”

“And you kicked his ass,” Oliver said, “and got around him by hacking your mom’s watch.”

“Actually,” Felicity corrected him, “it was a smart wearable.And it was Ray’s.”

“We’ll be fine, Felicity,” Oliver repeated, exasperation bleeding through every syllable.“Go home.”

 

—

 

“You take care of Thea and that poor little boy,” Donna said as they loitered in front of the airport check-in counter.“That’s my _machatunim_.”

“Yes, Mother,” Felicity said absently, only half-listening as she waited for a status update on the whole Faust-missile-destruction-of-the-city situation.

“I’m serious, Felicity,” her mom said.“That’s your family.That’s _our_ family.”

Felicity looked up in surprise.

“I know how hard it is for you to open yourself up to hope, but you should.”

“What?” Felicity asked, shocked into words.“Why?”

“Because you deserve a happy ending, honey,” Donna said, taking Felicity’s hand with a smile on her face.

“Mom,” Felicity said, shaking herself free.“All I care about is him.This isn’t a fairytale and there is no happy ending.Please don’t — you’re making me feel like I’m tempting fate or something.”

“You found yourselves in each other,” Donna insisted.“Again.And the minute you stop believing things will get better is the minute I know they won’t.”

How much time, Felicity wondered, had she spent in the past year and a half - not just sad, but angry, and not just angry, but terrified.Angry that she left, angry that he hadn’t left her any other choice; terrified, from the moment he passed out in the bunker steam room and she felt the life literally draining out of him, that no matter what happened she would just lose him again.Sometimes Felicity thought it would have been easier to put all of it, the past five years, behind her than to go through any of it again.

“Would you look at the time,” Felicity said brightly, holding her phone up.“Time to go through security, Mom, before you miss your flight.”

Donna’s face fell, but only for a minute.She stepped closer and pulled Felicity into a hug.

Felicity’s phone rang and she held up a hand to her mother before she answered it.“Hi,” Oliver’s voice said, not waiting for her to speak.“We’re fine.”Felicity heard a muffled sound in the background and a snicker from Oliver.“And Rene wants to know if you can bring some Big Belly Burger on your way back to the bunker.”

“Will do,” Felicity said, smiling.“I’ll see you soon.”She hung up and turned back to Donna.“Mom,” she said, trying to find the words, because her mother was right and because after everything they had been through, she had at least learned that it was never too late to keep trying.“I knew,” she said finally, “from the moment I saw him, that I would never stop loving him.But—“ Donna was trying to interrupt.“It really is complicated.”

“You’re happy, sweetie,” Donna said.“Un-complicate it.Nothing else matters.”Donna reached for the handle of her suitcase.“And happy endings aren’t always what you think they will be.”

Felicity went in for another hug.“I love you, Mom.”

“I love you both, honey.Be good to each other.”

 

—

 

 _Epilogue  
_ _October 25, 2017_

 

Felicity could see their future again.It was nothing like she had imagined it would be, dangling from a keychain decorated with a tennis ball wearing a mask.But the man offering it to her was everything she had always hoped he could be.

_I am one hundred percent sure his life will be better with you in it.Just like mine is._

Round One was very nearly on the bean bag chair Curtis had insisted on adding to their office decor, the one Felicity was secretly convinced was a leftover of Paul’s that didn’t fit in his new space but that Curtis couldn’t bear to get rid of.But Felicity had done _that_ before, had an ill-advised romp on one of the beanbags that had been so ubiquitous in the dorms at MIT, and she and Oliver were not going to reunite on one.

They made it to the countertop instead, Oliver lifting her up onto the granite and reminding her which of them, exactly, had the magic fingers.Three, two, one - pressure on the exact right spot - Oliver knew all of the places to touch and all of the ways to make her knees go weak and her head spin.

“Felicity,” he whispered, standing snugly between her legs.“ _Felicity._ ”He was so overwhelmed with emotion that she almost couldn’t hear it, except that it was exactly the way he used to say it and Felicity could see their future again.She wrapped herself around him, using him as leverage to pull herself off the counter and back onto the floor, pressing herself against him as she did so.Oliver rocked back on his feet as if she had pushed him when she reached for his belt and swore to himself in Russian when she started unbuckling it.Together they got his trousers off to join most of her clothes in the pile on the floor and she reached for the length of him, her grip soft but firm while his hands moved to her hair, her cheeks - whispering against her forehead with the gentlest of butterfly kisses until he tensed and pulled and let his head fall against her shoulder when he came with a gasp.

 _This is really happening,_ Felicity thought to herself, but wasn’t completely surprised when Oliver’s mouth was on hers, the heat of him all around her.“It really is,” he said quietly, and there was wonder in his voice just as there had been in hers.

“I love you,” she whispered, and when he said her name in the way that meant _I love you_ it settled something inside her. 

Something else she wanted inside her —

“That would be my preference as well,” Oliver breathed into her ear, which got them to Round Two, a tangle of limbs on the couch that started frantic and insistent, the grip of his fingers against her breasts, her waist, moving downward and playing expertly in slow, teasing circles; her hands flat against his back, along his ribs, tracing the scars she already knew by heart and the new ones she wanted to learn, feeling his chest rise and fall with every inhale and exhale.

Her name, again, as he slid inside her, and Felicity didn’t fight the urge to close her eyes and _feel_ , just for a moment, before she shifted and took him in deeper.Opening her eyes, she brushed her fingertips against his forehead.“Hey,” she said.

“Hi,” he said, and smiled.

It was slow and perfect, the pressure of his thumb combined with a rhythm that only faltered after Felicity dug her nails into him, crying and calling out his name. His weight was comforting and familiar, like the scratchy little kisses against her throat and the movement of his hand up and down her spine as he pulled them impossibly close together.It was rediscovery and homecoming and —

“Perfect,” he said softly.

“I already said that,” she huffed, and he bit down on a laugh.

“Not out loud that time,” he pointed out before he kissed her, framing her face with his hands. “Should we take this upstairs?”

Sigh.Excellent idea in theory, but upstairs had never felt so far away, and — “Are you staying?”

Oliver extricated himself from the mess they had made of the couch cushions and Felicity tried not to whimper as the warmth of him and the weight of him left her, consoling herself by enjoying the view as he walked away.He tossed his t-shirt at her and pulled his boxer briefs back on before he answered her.“I didn’t come over here to—“ he started, then broke off.“I don’t have to.I can go if that’s what you want.”

Felicity was so distracted by the idea of waking up with him again, in _their_ bed, and all of the ways they had used to amuse each other in those circumstances - Rounds Four and Five, maybe, and definitely a hot shower while he washed her hair in that careful, loving way he had, the gentle pressure of his fingers against her scalp - that it took her a minute to realize he was still waiting for her to acknowledge his question.Or to look at him.

“Oliver,” she said simply, “I’d be completely okay if you never left again.Like, ever.”

“Good to know,” Oliver said, with a smile that went all the way up to his eyes.“So, upstairs?”

“Only if you’re carrying me,” she said, not really joking.

“That depends on your answer to my next question,” he said, and his eyes were positively twinkling.“Are you free for dinner?Tomorrow night?Chez Marta?”

 _The next time we go out for dinner I want it to be the last first date of my life._  
_…I love you, and i want to spend the rest of my life with you…_  
_Happy endings aren’t always what you think they will be.  
_ _Find the beginning._

Mutely, she nodded.He came back over to the couch, tugging her up into his arms, hooking her knees over his elbows.“Hold on to me tight, Felicity.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so, thanks, everyone. i really appreciate you following along with me as i worked this out. i hope you enjoyed the journey as much as i did.
> 
> a note on this chapter: the portions involving faust are remixed/adapted/quoted from "fatal legacies", season 5.5. (also, according to season 5.5, oliver did actually get a therapist for william. and made a really bad joke about chopsticks.)
> 
>  _machatunim:_ in yiddish, it means in-laws, but also more than that - the relationship of your spouse's parents to each other, like co-in-laws. there's not really an english equivalent. the yiddish speakers in my family always used it to also refer to the extended family that came along with the in-laws, which is how donna is using it here.


End file.
